NFF- the fury riders
by Puffin777
Summary: Hiccup discovers a strange birthmark which links him to toothless. the mark guides him to fury island where they find more like themselves. OC riders and OC night furies. first chapter was updated.
1. 1: A chance encounter, a new land

**NFF- the fury riders.**

 **Starts off after Toothless is shot down. Breaks off the main storyline after a while**

 **This has been updated once to be more detailed, also I'll be cutting down on powers if I can. As of the end of the first update there has been no powers removed but it will happen.**

" **Dragon speech (bold)"**

' **Dragon thoughts (telekinesis)(bold)'**

 **Vocab/grammar comments, no matter how small or apparently insignificant, are appreciated.**

 **Chapter 1 Tattoo of fate.**

Hiccup wandered through the forest looking for the night fury that he had shot down. He mourned his embarrassing mistake. The sun's slow progress across the cloudy sky telling him just how long he had spent scouring the forest with no success.

"Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug … not me, I lose an entire dragon!"

He smacked a branch in frustration, only to have it hit him back in the face. Wincing, he looked up to see that the treetop had been cut off, jagged splinters pointing to the sky. Hurriedly he set off in the direction of more destruction.

He came closer and closer until the dirt scrape of the downed dragon lead over a mound, glittering slightly with shed scales from the crash. Sensing that this was the one that the dragon was on the other side of, Hiccup prepared to peek over the top.

He looked over and was frightened by a night fury. He looked over again to realise that the nightfury was bound and unconscious. He timidly walked up to the downed dragon, before gathering his courage to plant his foot on the unconscious beast.

"I Hiccup horrendous haddock the third have slain the mighty beast."

The dragon just merely shifts in his slumber, unconsciously irritated by his actions. Hiccup was surprised by this shift and fell back, a cloud of loose dirt enveloping him for a brief moment.

While he was on the ground he saw the night furies eyes open wide and stare at him, a calculating gaze evaluating its would-be predator, not distracted by the scrawny muscles but seeing the razor sharp blade gleaming in the dim light.

He hurriedly stands, instincts screaming to kill the dangerous beast while he still could. He attempts to stab the night fury with shaky hands, but suddenly his birth mark burns with vicious intensity until Hiccup aborts the attack, feeling a phantom pain erupting from his skin.

He looks at his hand in bewilderment to notice his birth mark is glowing amber but becoming bluer by the second. Hiccup is also surprised that the forge tattoo that he used to cover up the birth mark has shrunk, revealing his strange birthmark's unique shape.

The crossed swords and fire insignia had become incorporated into the mark. He looked carefully at the mark, scrutinizing the oddly familiar shape and saw that the birthmark had, in fact, been a symbol of a night fury; The awkward posture of his downed victim matching the symbol.

He looked at the night fury again and suddenly felt a huge sense of guilt that he had brought down a creature connected to him, somehow, through birth. However, it had happened, and he was impatient to fix the damage.

The gods would smile upon him for reading this supernatural sign. He would leave, of course, when it was all over. He knew that remaining with a predator, even one related to the mysterious gods, would mean his end.

He walked up to the dragon again and started to cut the ropes.

The night fury was instantly aware of the sudden change in actions and looked to where Hiccup was cutting his bindings. Waiting until the last binding was cut he pounced on the Viking, determined to use his opponent's stupidity to gain the upper hand.

The Viking reacted by putting up his hands to cover his face. and when Toothless saw the markings on his hand he was surprised.

The marks glowed a warning amber as Toothless' s prepared shot reached it's crescendo before being dispersed quickly by the panicked dragon, angry specks of liquid spread either side of Toothless' head.

Toothless, recovering from the unusual recoil of an aborted shot, sat shocked, as the mark on the boy's hand indicated he was a rider, and, by the way that Toothless felt a heat on his own mark, they were connected.

He was too surprised to deal with the situation immediately and flew off; flight impaired by his damaged tail, causing him to crash into a cove.

Hiccup recovered from the shock of the Dragon's pounce. His mind initially told him to leave the area before being quietened by a voice that Hiccup hadn't heard before.

This new, foreign voice urged him to follow the night fury and become friends with it. Although Hiccup had never had such thoughts of friendship with the dragons before he followed this strong voice in his mind. Curious of the consequences.

He came across the night fury in the cove as it was trying to escape. His initial surprise died down when the Night fury turned around to perform a ragged landing. Hiccup was confused that the dragon was stuck in the cove, couldn't it fly?

Hiccup's vision then added a glowing outline to a missing tailfin on the tail of Toothless, inducing a phantom feeling of pity. Hiccup was surprised that this detail had been added to his normal vision, but the 'voice' distracted him by telling him to get to know the dragon better, adding he could finally get to know someone to overcome his instinctual hesitation.

Hiccup did what naturally came to mind and started sketching the dragon in his notebook. his internal voice sighed at his ignorance but allowed him to do so. When he had finished his sketch, he decided to follow the directions of his internal voice, creeping down to meet the night fury.

As he stalked closer he watched as the dragon tried, in vain, to catch some fish. His mind noted it down as a point of interest and he continued.

he came within striking distance, but Hiccup became too distracted with the shape of the beast. His eyes traced the form of the night fury as his hand started to reach out to feel the texture of the dragon's skin.

Before he could stop himself his hand touched the hindquarters of the dragon and felt the texture.

The Night fury whipped around in embarrassed surprise only to sigh in relief once he saw it was only the rider, to whom he already had an almost familial relationship. Hiccup was very confused at such a passive expression of ignorant bliss from the dragon, while also being slightly embarrassed at his own strange introduction. Hiccup then shook away his embarrassment in order to give a rhetorical question to himself.

"why are you so friendly with me?"

Surprisingly the dragon understood his question and gave the inside of his hand a nudge with his head. Hiccup turned this part of his hand towards him and he saw the birthmark again. The night fury then used his eyes to motion towards the top of his head.

Hiccup looked at the top of the dragon's head and saw a mark which now glowed green, as opposed to Hiccup's blue glowing mark. Hiccup was startled and wanted to know if this meant what he thought it did.

He brought his mark closer to the dragon's and they both glowed brighter. This confirmed to Hiccup that the two of them were somehow connected, the explanations would have to come later to the shocked duo.

Noticing the time by the sun Hiccup awkwardly ran back to the Village with a quick call of goodbye to the dragon as a show of courtesy. He didn't know why he was trying to be nice to the dragon, but it felt right to do so. Toothless watched his new close friend as he ran off to some meeting back at the village

Hiccup sneaked back to the house and attempted to get past Stoick. When Stoick noticed him Hiccup quickly closed his marked hand (with the glowing symbol) and attempted to converse casually with Stoick.

It worked as well as could be expected from Hiccup's 'casual' conversation, Stoick brushed the poorly thought conversation to one side and told Hiccup how he was to make Berk proud. Hiccup desperately disagreed, citing his previous, horrendous, experiences in fighting dragons.

After Hiccup told Stoick how he couldn't and wouldn't kill a dragon, Stoick merely laughed it off, he was sure Hiccup would learn how Berk worked; dragon fighting was the only truly honourable job.

Stoick then replied by telling Hiccup that he was going to Dragon training the next day. He then handed over an axe to Hiccup while giving a speech to boost Hiccup's morale.

The next day Hiccup was inducted into dragon training. He made the long journey to the dragon ring island, through the boggy soil and prepared to meet the other dragon fighters (trainees although they were too prideful to admit it personally).

His mood darkened as he saw that they were ex- Berk fire brigade. All those teens were much more professional than him and used to working together, Hiccup was a nobody to them. Hiccup walked into the ring as Astrid was responding, sarcastically to the masochistic (pain loving) comments of the twins.

"…Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it"  
Hiccup offered his own, also sarcastic, take on that look

"yeah, pain, love it"

The teens turned around in disgust when they heard Hiccup's voice. They gave him a few insults about being the runt of the village but shifted their attention when they heard Gobber.

Snotlout "Hiccup already killed a night fury, so does that disqualify him?"

Great, Hiccup thought, the events last night were being treated like a joke. There was Laughter from the other teens

Gobber reassured Hiccup "don't worry your smart an' weak that will make you less if target they will see you as sick or sane and go after the more Viking like teens instead. Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you learn to fight. The deadly Nadder"

Fishlegs spoke in excitement

"speed 8 armour 16"

Gobber continued the explanations over Fishlegs stats.

"the hideous Zippleback"

"plus 11 stealth times 2"

"the monstrous nightmare"

"firepower 15"

"the terrible terror"

"attack 8 venom 12"

" can you please stop that! and the Gronckle"

Fishlegs whispered quietly to Hiccup

" jaw strength 8"

Snotlout voices his shock

"aren't you going to teach us first?"

Gobber smiles before replying

"I believe in learning on the job" [then he pulls down the lever]

Hiccup stands shocked in the middle of the arena while the other teens spread out in terror. The Gronckle locks onto Hiccup first, being right in front of himself. Hiccup screams and raises his hand to shield himself from the Gronckle, having not picked up a shield in the short amount of time.

The Gronckle looks in shock at Hiccup's hand, which has the rider symbol on it, that all dragons must honour (apart from alphas). The Gronckle becomes protective of this rider with all the other Viking's about and chases another teen.

Hiccup only looks on in surprise as the Gronckle breaks off his pursuit of him and chases the rest of the Vikings. Confused he watches while the Gronckle attacks the other teens. a recommendation, by Gobber, to pick up a shield makes Hiccup hastily pick up one and hide behind it as he contemplates what just happened.

The Gronckle easily defeats the other teens before casually flying back into its cage. Hiccup, unhurt and confused, is noted with disbelief and jealousy from the others. Hiccup notices the sour looks and is quick to escape the arena.

As he Jogs back to the Village Hiccup wonders how he could escape before this situation escalates. He decides finding a way to fix the night furies tail is the best solution. He heads to the forge to craft a new tail. After a few minutes of Jogging with breaks, he reaches the forge.

Upon entering he realises he has no idea how to craft the tail and he facepalms. While he is pulling his face away the crossed hammers of his birthmark illuminate in response for his need to craft. Hiccup experiences the mental picture of the glowing outline of Toothless' s missing tail fin again. This time however, the vision moves on to bring up a diagram of how Toothless' s crafted tail would be made.

As Hiccup watched all the parts connect, in his beautiful hallucination, he understands what he needs to do. Walking over to the forge fire he gathers some metal and prepares to smelt it into the shape required for the rods; the structural part of the tailfin.

When he reaches the forge fire he feels disappointed that it is too weak to forge on currently (Gobber was too busy at the ring to tend to it). In reaction to his disappointment the fire part of his mark ignites and so does the forge's fire. Quickly reaching an optimum temperature the forge fire is now burning brightly and ready for Hiccup's work. Hiccup gives a small gasp in surprise, first that the fire intensified so quickly, secondly that he wasn't affected by the forge's increased heat.

Disregarding his speculation to work on his project Hiccup placed the metal in the fire to heat up. Once it had gotten to the right temperature Hiccup reached in and plucked one of the pieces from the fire. He brought it out onto the anvil and pummelled it into the right shape. Once the piece was in the shape he needed he dropped it into the water to cool.

Not bothering to pick up the cooled metal he quickly moved on to the next piece and worked it. Continuing the cycle until he had every part he needed. He then creeped out of the forge and fetched some leather to stretch over the skeleton of the frame.

Satisfied with his work he decided to leave it in his private room in his forge; He was tired, it was hard to carry, and it was close to midnight. He himself went back to his abode to sleep.

Early the next morning; as the dawn rays pierced the skies with vengeance, he got up and prepared to pick up the tailfin before anyone noticed. He was charging down the steps when he saw the teens standing outside. In his panicked state he didn't have time to stop, only accelerate.

He felt his speed increase as a force pushed hard from his midsection. He crashed into the Viking's at the door and, thanks to whatever Viking god was watching over him at the time, managed to push past. Stoick was standing next to the door listening to the complaints as Hiccup came barrelling past.

Stoick watched in confusion as Hiccup managed to knock over the teens before running off. The last aspect he saw, as Hiccup sprinted away, was that Hiccup's lower tunic was burning, He reasoned that Hiccup had set himself on fire and was rushing to put it out.

Hiccup's view was blurred at the sudden speed he was experiencing, although his vision was slowly adapting to the change. He slowed down briefly at the forge to pick up the tailfin before blazing off to meet the night fury. After a few minutes of high speed running he reached the cove.

The night fury was disgruntled to see the rider back in the middle of the day but started worrying when he saw the look of terror on his rider's face. Hiccup shouted a warning.

"Come on we've got to get off the ground before the village finds out, I have your tail ready to fit to you."

The fury was confused how His rider had made a tail but got ready to fly as Hiccup went around his hindquarters towards his tail. Afterwards he felt something being attached to his tail and then Hiccup came back around from his hindquarters with a saddle.

Hiccup attached the saddle while scanning the forest above for any signs of the other Vikings. Seeing none he finished attaching the saddle before attempting to climb on. As he stumbled onto the saddle Hiccup's marked hand touched the night fury's mark; as soon as it happened both night fury and rider learnt a lot about each other, and importantly, their different names.

Toothless turned around to ask Hiccup something.

" **Hiccup? What kind of name is** _ **that**_ **for a** _ **Viking**_ **?"**

Hiccup mirrored his gestures in his own confusion.

"Toothless? What kind of name is _that_ for a _dragon_?"

Toothless and Hiccup both stared at each other before laughing at their mimicry. After the laughs had faded, Hiccup slowly mounted the saddle and put his leg into the mechanical stirrup. Toothless was a bit confused at how the human expected the fin to work.

" **do you know how to fly me with your artificial fin?"**

Hiccup laughed nervously before replying.

"I don't know, I hope so."

Taking this statement as Hiccup being ready for flight, for knowing otherwise would just impede their escape, Toothless powered off the ground.

As he gained altitude he was suddenly mentally aware that both his marking's and Hiccup's dragon one had illuminated. He was proven right when Hiccup showed he somehow knew perfectly well how to use his fin, reacting quickly to every subconscious movement Toothless made.

Toothless smiled at his regained ability to fly but was interrupted when he felt a strong urge to change course. The mental voice inside of him insisted it was his destiny

Hiccup wasn't too surprised at Toothless' s sudden change in direction as it still led away from Berk. However, He became a little confused as they passed multiple Islands where Hiccup thought they might rest. He conveyed his unease to Toothless.

"where are you taking me Toothless?"

Toothless didn't bother to deviate his head to answer in verbal form, instead he addressed Hiccup mentally.

' **towards where our destiny lies.** '

Hiccup was unsure of what this meant but thought that the dragon meant well. Hiccup kept on scanning the distance as they travelled.

Eventually they made it to an island which was unique from the rest. High black walls surrounding the island and low built houses, also in black, dotted the island. As both Toothless and Hiccup patrolled around this Island, another night fury came down beside Toothless from the thick clouds overhead.

Hiccup whipped his head around to see an elder man riding a battle hardened night fury. The old man had scars on his face and his night fury had lost an eye. Hiccup silently gauged whether this rider was friend or foe before the man spoke.

"hello fury rider! I assume you, like all of our riders, have come here to join our group. Welcome to shadow island where all the night fury riders reside. Once you land we can give you a wing rider and you will be assigned to a squadron. While here you should enjoy the peaceful attributes of our island away from the ferocious Vikings."

Hiccup contemplated the idea. Being able to rest and recuperate in the area was a huge positive for Hiccup. Also, although he didn't hate the Vikings, he didn't want to remain around them for long. With his mind made up he questioned the elder rider.

"I think I will join you. Where on this island can me and Toothless land?"

The old man laughed for a while.

"what kind of name is that for a dragon?"

He was confronted by two pairs of angry eyes from the dragon and rider. Hiccup replied firmly.

"Or we can leave and never come back, of course."

The elder sobered up and gave a sincere apology.

"I am sorry for having insulted your dragon…"

He gestured for Hiccup to fill in the rest, Hiccup did so

"Hiccup."

The other rider continued.

"So, _Hiccup_ , the place to land is over there. The newest building with a white drape over it is the house for the newest riders. Once you have settled in we remove the drape and start another house."

Hiccup spotted the white and glided down on Toothless until he reached his new home. He discovered to his happiness there was a spot for him and Toothless as well as a space for storage. Satisfied with his quick observation he came out again to await the elder. The elder glided down haphazardly and landed heavily next to the duo. He then announced his purpose.

"now that you have seen your house I would like to introduce you to your wing rider. The rider is called midnight and she is called midnight. she also has a female night fury named eclipse. Both live next to you two and you can visit them any time. But before that you will need to meet them in the dining room, so I can announce the pairing."

Hiccup followed the man into the dining room where they could see about a dozen riders. The night furies were eating from a hopper nearby. Toothless bounded over to join them and, after a quick look from the other night furies, was accepted. Hiccup watched this interaction and hoped 'let this be the same for me'

Toothless mentally responded

' **I hope so too Hiccup, but firstly I need to eat some fish. These night furies are nice.'**

Hiccup mentally facepalmed at Toothless' s inappropriately joyful response before waiting for the man to pick out his partner. His partner came off the bench she had been sitting on and came to meet Hiccup. She said her welcome to Hiccup

"Hello Hiccup! I'm glad to have a partner after all this time. The others should stop bullying me after they found out I finally have a battle brother."

Hiccup winced at her Language.

"can you please just refer to me as wing man or Hiccup? Battle brother and partner make us sound like we're about to be married."

Midnight blushed at her mistake but heard some giggling in the background. One voice became apparent.

"she's always making mistakes like that!"

She was about to give them a violent comeback, but Hiccup soothed her.

"come on it's nothing to get annoyed about. Let's get back to our houses before we get too worked up about it."

Midnight was happy that Hiccup had calmed her down before she lost herself. She really hated those bullies. After one quick last glance at them she followed Hiccup out the door.

Hiccup and Midnight wandered back through the, currently empty, rows of houses for the dragon riders and their dragons. Toothless and Eclipse came out behind them while checking each other out. Hiccup said goodbye to Midnight as she had to go to her own house. Toothless equally gave his goodbyes to eclipse as he followed Hiccup.

Hiccup curled lay down in his very comfortable bed as he anticipated the events of tomorrow. Toothless followed him with a blast onto his slab before curling up.


	2. 2: Hiccup the archer?

**The fury riders.**

 **A/N:**

 **Do you want to give ideas on how to continue my stories? Ideas are welcome as reviews or PMs, please remember that I can't reply to you if you don't have an account.**

 **Maybe this update will be around 1500 words and not 3000? Time will tell.**

 ***to Nightfuryfanfic*: perhaps you'll find a reference to our conversations on PM in this story!**

 **Chapter 2: (currently no title)**

Hiccup got out of his bed and walked over to the door before realising Toothless was still asleep. He debated on whether to wake his dragon but instead resolved to leave him a note. Letting Toothless know he had gone off towards the dining room. He briskly strode towards the dining room but was surprised that no one else was there with him.

Hiccup sat down at the table with his food from the stores but still wondered where everyone else was. He was glad to finally see midnight approaching where he sat and asked her the obvious question.

"where is everybody?"

Midnight just smiled although she was quite sleepy as she gave him his reply.

"you don't know how early you are. All the other riders are asleep. I was actually planning to come here early to give you a surprise although that doesn't seem to have happened."

Hiccup smiled at her. He was used to early mornings and this was fine for him

"Well, I used to be a blacksmith and they're always ready for a long day's work."

Midnight just nodded at Hiccup's explanation until she saw that the hand which Hiccup held up had a blacksmith tattoo over the normal fury rider tattoo. Also, the blacksmith insignia was glowing as Hiccup spoke his words. Midnight was fascinated at the strange version of the dragon rider tattoo even with her barely awakened mind.

"why does your fury insignia have a blacksmith insignia over it? And why is the blacksmith insignia glowing?"

Hiccup nervously laughed as he gave his explanation.

"My village never … trusted the dragons so I had to cover up the night fury mark with something else so that no one would see it. It seems to have become a part of my fury birthmark and as such glows as well."

Midnight was astonished.

"I only have the fury outline and I've never heard of it merging with tattoos, not from anyone else. What does it do?"

Hiccup continued his explanation while waving his hand over her face to check how awake she was.

"the only things I know it does is control fire and give me understanding of mechanics. There's probably more to it but that's all I know."

Midnight was astonished and forced herself out of her sleepy state to fully grasp what Hiccup was saying. After a while she was pretty sure she understood it and let Hiccup speak a question that had been bothering him while she had stayed in thought.

"when is everybody else getting up?"

Midnight informed Hiccup.

"they should be getting up about now. There isn't a timetable, but this is the general time everyone gets up. Unlike other places we get up because we enjoy the day's challenge rather than get up because we're forced too. It's an amazing way to live and you're quite lucky to join us."

Interestingly the next person through the door was the elder. Hiccup wasn't expecting the old man to get here before the younger recruits but was pleasantly surprised. The elder suggested a plan for the day's events after a bit of familial understanding.

"It's nice to know that Midnight and our newest recruit are getting on well. Have you shown your friend to the practise firing ranges?"

Midnight was happy to remember about one of her favourite parts of the island. She dragged Hiccup off to get their dragons before going to the ring. After being dragged halfway across the island by the impatient girl Hiccup entered his dwelling to fetch Toothless. He was confused as to where he was until Toothless dropped from the ceiling and covered him in licks. Hiccup replied in mock disgust:

"Toothless! You start talking to me and _then_ you start licking me? That's gross!"

Toothless didn't care and continued licking Hiccup until he was sure he had got his message across. Hiccup was thankful for the retreat of the dragon's tongue and informed Toothless of the day's events.

"Toothless, Midnight wants to show us the practise ranges, so you can test your shot."

Toothless readily agreed and informed Hiccup of his own prowess smugly.

" **those other dragons can't even raise a claw to me! My shots can blow apart an entire catapult into splinters!"**

Midnight was waiting outside with Eclipse and when she spotted Hiccup she jumped on and flew off towards the north end of the island. Hiccup quickly followed behind her on Toothless and they quickly arrived at the edge of the island. Here they saw rocks with targets on them. they also saw a line. Midnight explained both too Hiccup.

"Here we have the targets. They are imbued with magic that allows them to reset positions. No one knows how they can, but they just do. How well does your dragon aim?"

Hiccup shrugged before answering.

"Toothless has an excellent aim. Why do you even have targets when night furies never miss?"

Midnight was confused.

"I've never heard of that saying before. My dragon can hit targets up close, but she has trouble hitting them when they're right at the furthest places from the firing line."

Hiccup was also confused that the girl didn't know the legendary story of night fury aim. He remained in this way until he noticed Toothless was smiling smugly. Hiccup put the facts together and laughed at the result.

Midnight was still bewildered. Where had he heard _that_ rumour about the aim of a night fury? And why was he laughing.

Hiccup explained himself.

"I think that my dragon is the one that founded that rumour in my village. Aren't you bud?"

Toothless gave an arrogant boast.

" **I do have an excellent shot for a night fury."**

Eclipse was unimpressed.

" **I'll believe it when I see it"**

Toothless took the challenge and released a plasma blast straight into the centre of the furthest target. He looked back with a smug expression at Eclipse.

" **does that prove it to you?"**

Eclipse was astonished but composed herself in front of the perceived upstart. She wanted to let the new dragon know she wasn't impressed by his one-time shot.

" **Beginners luck. No dragon could ever hit a target that far away more than once."**

Toothless embraced the challenge again to the surprise of Eclipse. He released several more shots and each of them found their mark. Eclipse was stunned but fortunately/unfortunately another rider arrived to give his own boast.

"you can be quite accurate night fury, but do you have the _power_ behind your shots."

He motioned for his dragon to start preparing a shot. The shot blew apart a boulder, A close boulder and not one of the far ones that Toothless was shooting at but Toothless was shocked. His dragon even spared an insult to the newbie dragon.

" **you can't match that can you? I have the strongest shot around and no one could make one more powerful than mine."**

Toothless was scared at the intimidating presence of the night fury with superior firepower. Hiccup was surprisingly boastful after the show of dominance.

"that is hardly a challenge for Toothless."

Toothless was scared by Hiccup entering him into a contest he couldn't expect to win. He gave a mental message to Hiccup in fright:

' **what do you think you're doing?! That dragon has a stronger shot than I've ever seen!'**

Hiccup smirked.

'he may have a normally powerful shot, but does he have this.' [he says while gesturing to the fire part of his blacksmith insignia]

Toothless wasn't sure what to make of the strange symbol Hiccup had over his fury mark but trusted him. He gathered his courage and approached the firing line again. The other dragon and his rider snorted in laughter at the perceived newbie's attempt to outmatch them. Toothless gave a deep breath for courage and fired his shot.

He watched as the shot whistled away from his mouth. He expected the shot to peter off slowly then weakly hit the boulder.

He was not expecting his shot to grow rapidly bigger. It came closer and closer as it became larger and larger. It struck the first boulder and vaporized the pieces.

The parts of the plasma blast that spilled off reformed and strengthened into a new bolt and shot off towards a second boulder.

The process repeated and new features like the shot multiplying into multiple shots emerged.

Eventually all the boulders were blasted off the face of the earth and all that watched the event could only sit in silence. All except Toothless and Hiccup. Toothless looked at Hiccup and saw the fire part of his mark still glowing strongly. Toothless was surprised that Hiccup had used such a mystical part of himself to defend Toothless' s own honour. Toothless gave a small courteous bow to his friend and Hiccup reciprocated with a stroke around Toothless' s neck.

The rider that had been so arrogant earlier was faced with shock at the abilities that Hiccup possessed.

"what. Was. That."

Hiccup gave a serious expression towards the night fury rider.

"a reminder that you shouldn't pick on other riders."

With that Hiccup walked off, followed soon by Toothless then Midnight and Eclipse. The elder watched from atop his night fury. He too was amazed by Toothless' s show of firepower and thanked the gods that Midnight, the troubled girl who had been alone for so long, finally had a battle brother to be proud about.

Hiccup was debating in silence what the results of him showing his powers would be. He knew the other riders would find it weird but hoped that his battle sister wouldn't treat him badly. He could hear her Jogging to catch up to Hiccup and Toothless. While Hiccup prepared for the worst Midnight spoke.

"what else can that mark of yours do?"

Hiccup was both surprised that she wasn't treating him oddly and curious about how she knew it was the mark.

"I don't know. The fire part seems to be the most prevalent and the crossed hammers hasn't offered me much yet apart from making Toothless' s artificial tail fin."

She realised she had missed something.

"Toothless has an artificial tail fin? They both look the same!"

Hiccup grinned (although he wished he wasn't such a stranger to the other riders) and explained simply.

"I am a blacksmith _imbued with magical powers_. What else did you expect? Even granted that I didn't know about the magical part before I started. How did you know about the mark?"

Midnight shifted nervously.

"I like to size up my enemies. Oh, wait I'm so sorry I didn't mean to say that!"

Hiccup raised an eyebrow at his new battle sister descending into a panic.

"I thought it would be harder to get you emotional. Are you alright?"

She sighed.

"normally I'm quite proud of my battle prowess. Charge in, charge out and finish the battle quickly. I am emotional because I have never had to deal with another person who's as close to me as a battle brother. Normally I could just ignore everyone else and that was fine. I was used to being alone"

Eclipse was a bit offended about the last part and nudged Midnight, so she wouldn't forget about her. Midnight was thankful for her reminder.

"of course, I wasn't completely alone. Eclipse here has been my friend for the entire time I was here and has helped me through a lot of raids. Being as suicidal as I am with charges does bring the element of surprise but normally ends up with me getting injured."

Hiccup acknowledged her speech with silence. He was, himself, getting used to the Thought of someone flying beside him as a friend. The elder then interrupted the confession to give Hiccup some more news.

"I think that it's time for Hiccup to meet up with his flight. Hiccup, I should tell you how this works. The flight is made of four pairs of riders. The flight goes to a specific area to attack or patrol. Once the flight is in the general area the flight breaks up into the pairs. The pairs are why you have your battle sister: Midnight. If you don't understand then try to find me and I can explain"

Hiccup was fine with the explanation. He watched as sets of 8 night furies went off to patrol the compass points. The elder rider urged Hiccup towards the Dining room where he explained Hiccup would meet the flight. Midnight and Hiccup flew towards the meeting but weren't needed to land when the other members of the flight flew up to him. One of the energetic young ones informed Hiccup of their odd course today.

"So, Hiccup, instead of going towards the compass points _the old man_ has said we can visit the place that you're from. So where do you come from?"

Hiccup was a bit worried that the business of this operation was to meet his old home. But he realised that the other members of the flight were enthusiastic for a day off their normal (consensual, no one was forced) duties.

"I come from Berk. Don't you realise that they aren't friendly to dragons?"

The energetic member wasn't fazed by this.

"I don't know where Berk is, so you can show us the way. Also, don't worry about them being dragon hunters. We're riding night furies for Odin's sake, also the name is Crisp, and my dragon is Fireflame."

Hiccup was still worried about the other riders on the way to berk. He was also interested in the fire related names of both the rider and his night fury.

"firstly, do you know that Berk has shot down a night fury before? Secondly, why are your names related to fire?"

Crisp was a bit taken about the fact that berk had shot down a night fury.

"who could take down a night fury from the sky! I would hate to meet a dragon hunter who's that good. Also, our names are fire related because of a little incident my birth. _It was a merry little blaze_ … until it burned the forest down!"

Hiccup was amazed that Crisp was unfazed (he hadn't tried to turn back) even when he had told him about the vague details of his most unfortunate/fortunate (he had met Toothless after all) incident. He decided this wasn't the kind of thing that should remain a secret, so he told it to Crisp.

"I was the one who shot the night fury down, that's how I met Toothless. [Crisp and the other riders were very surprised] I actually had to fix the tail fin of Toothless since it had been damaged by the bola I used."

The other riders, including Midnight, were mortified to hear about Hiccup taking down Toothless. Hiccup quickly calmed down the situation.

"I was forced to. My dad was chief of the village and he had been pressuring me to down a dragon. I'm sorry but I was a disappointment to the village and I desperately hoped to fix that."

The riders nodded in understanding. Although none of them had injured their dragon like Hiccup had but they knew about being outcasted by their village. It was the reason most of them had joined after all. Crisp broke the silent reflection with his unusual energy.

"so, you say that you fixed the tail fin? I can't see the difference between them. how did you get so good?"

Hiccup smiled and gave him one word in explanation while willing his craft symbol to light up

"magic"

Crisp watched the unusual symbol illuminate on Hiccup's palm. This re-ignited his curiosity.

"how did you get that and what does it do?"

Hiccup continued the explanation to his temporary disciple.

"I got it after I tattooed the blacksmith insignia onto my rider mark. The insignia became a special entity, part of my abilities, when I activated my magic mark for the first time."

Crisp was fascinated by the explanation but wanted to know more

"and what does it do? You still haven't answered that part of my question!"

Hiccup shrugged.

"as far as I know it only gives me knowledge on how to forge anything. It's not as though I could just summon a set of bow and arrows from thin air but at least it does something. I do kind of wish that it could just summon things though. Would save a lot of forging?"

Hiccup did not notice that as soon as he said "summon" the crossed hammers of his mark had started to glow. A gas escaped and started to form into shapes, even in the strong wind of flight. Hiccup noticed the gas and looked down. He was surprised to see a bow and arrow adorning his saddle. Hiccup was in shock and was only shaken out of it when Midnight surprised him with a voice from above.

"you are full of surprises, aren't you Hiccup?"

Hiccup looked up to see Midnight flying inverted above him. Hiccup was quite scared since he had never seen any of the riders doing this.

"why are you doing that?! You could fall!"

Midnight laughed a good hearty laugh before settling back into normal flight beside Hiccup. Hiccup sighed in relief. After a bit more time Hiccup decided to pick up the summoned bow and arrow and try to use it.

Hiccup hefted it and lifted it to try to aim it at a random tree. He was having trouble until he felt a strange sensation of shifting skin.

He looked again at his hand and realised that the blacksmith symbol had shifted into a mark of a bow and arrow. The flame had narrowed to fit the width of the back of the arrow. Hiccup thought it was worth a shot (pun intended) and was suddenly aware of a sight that overlaid his normal vision. He pointed the sight at the tree and thought hard about firing.

His drawback arm released the string and the arrow sped forwards. Now he wasn't trying to aim the mark on his palm shifted back. he watched as the fire icon stayed lit and the arrow he had fired also had a noticeable flame coming out of it's back. the little flicker of the arrow thruster travelled straight towards the tree before splitting it in two. Hiccup laughed at his achievement.

One of the irritated members noticed his triumph and decided to shame the newbie.

"you just shot an arrow at the ground. What kind of achievement is that."

Hiccup could feel his grip on the bow strengthening. His mark rapidly shifted into archer mode and he set his sight on the area right in front of the offending riders face. He released the string and watched as the arrow sped towards it's intended target.

The irritated rider had just noticed Hiccup tightening his grip on the bow before an arrow sped quickly right in front of his face. He also felt an unfamiliar heat as the flame propelling the arrow went past his face. After such a display the rider was in shock.

"what was that? It passed right by my face!"

Hiccup unsurely pressed his advantage.

"don't doubt my archery skills, apparently it's one of the magic skills I possess."

The other riders were in disbelief. 'he has amazing archery skills just because of magic? What is this!'

Their thoughts were interrupted when Hiccup noticed an island on the horizon

"BERK!"

 **A/N:**

 **God I am so bad at sticking to normal word count but at least it gives you more story faster than usual. You can blame my sudden need to write on a family party.**


	3. 3: the meeting with Stoick

**NFF- the fury riders**

 **A/N**

 **I feel like it's time to give midnight's story**

 **For your information the update (at around 1600 words through the story) is currently about the intriguing ways Hiccup's power could work (please tell me if you want me to concentrate on what I have). I had to remove a very small bit of the old piece, so the update would fit**

 **Finally made the night fury even stealthier. Please tell me if you want this in my other stories**

 **Running low on ideas and I have school so I'm going slowly through this story. Hope you enjoy.**

Chapter 3:

Berk came into view and the furies descended onto one of the statues that surrounded the village. They hung out of view while the riders discussed their strategy. Midnight started

"So, I think that we should just go in formation and terrify the hell out of them, so they are too shocked to retaliate."

Hiccup was sure that plan wouldn't work

"The village is fearful of night furies, but my father sees them as an opportunity. If you go in formation he's just going to hurl bolas at you and bring you down. Especially during the day. Night time would be better since we need stealth."

The others nodded in response to Hiccup's plan. They went around the front at low level and came to the back of the village. Hiccup pointed them towards the cove and that is where they stayed until nightfall. Once night fall had come the riders came over the forest like wraiths, undetectable to the untrained eye. They landed near the chief's house after Hiccup's directions and Hiccup lead the group to meet Stoick.

Stoick was worried with what he saw: 8 black dragons bared down on his house from the forest. The dragons landed nearby and then he saw 8 people in ultra-dark armour approach his house. He gripped his axe and got ready to attack the unwelcome intruders.

He heard the front door being opened and just as he opened it he swung his axe at the person. The person was too short, and his axe passed right over his head. He then heard the person speak.

"really dad? I'm gone for a while and then you decide to swing your axe at me when you see me again?"

Stoick was surprised, he hadn't expected Hiccup to be part of this group.

"Hiccup? Where did you go? And who are these people in their shady armour."

Hiccup was trying to come up with an answer, but Crisp took the question.

"He joined us, the fury riders, in a faraway place. The names Crisp and it's nice to see you Chief!"

Stoick and Hiccup were astounded. No other person had talked to Chief Stoick like that in a long time. Hiccup wanted to continue the explanations in case Stoick didn't like Crisp talking like that.

"so yeah.. dad I joined the fury riders since I sort of… became friends with a night fury. I'm sorry that you have to know this, but I couldn't risk telling you before."

Stoick was shocked that Hiccup had left his family behind to go to this strange collection of people. People who rode night furies no less.

"Why would you do this son? To betray our people in return for staying with dragons?"

Hiccup was expecting this, Stoick did not like dragons one bit and so seeming to be on their side was a grave crime.

"I left because the village didn't need me. I left because I was useless and rejected here."

Stoick was surprised by how much he understood what Hiccup was saying. Hiccup had been talking about this for years but Stoick had never expected him to do anything about it. Crisp was sceptical at Hiccup's statement.

"how can you be useless here if you've got those special magic skills? I'm sure that the village could use that."

Hiccup shook his head.

"those abilities only showed when I was introduced to my dragon. Therefore, I am indebted to this group for my abilities."

Astrid walked through the dark and cold village, she had been dismissed from her fire duties when no dragons had been spotted. She was passing the chief's house when she heard conversation. Curiously she came closer and looked inside the hut to see Stoick talking to an unknown group.

She kept listening and found that the group was called the fury riders and the one in front of Stoick was Hiccup. She gasped upon hearing the name of the son of Stoick that everybody had thought was dead. The people inside noticed and they came outside before she could move away from the door.

Hiccup started the awkward introduction

"hello Astrid, me and my father were just talking about my new life. We've finished now so I guess we're going anyway?"

Hiccup tried to walk away but Astrid got a hold of his arm.

"you are going to explain to me _exactly_ what just happened in our Chief's house."

Hiccup wasn't in the mood to converse, so he tried to put his explanation simply.

"the people around me are my fellow fury riders ["hello" from Crisp] and we wanted to meet Stoick before I went back to the island."

Astrid threatened him with an axe.

"and who are the fury riders?"

Hiccup wanted to flee into the calm night and going back to fury island. but he also didn't want to be hated by Astrid, so he continued.

"We are just a group who befriended the night furies but I'm not sure what we actually do."

Midnight took up the discussion, angered by the girl's aggression towards Hiccup.

"we patrol the area and try to stop war in any way we can [pulls Astrid's axe away from Hiccup] and you threatening Hiccup isn't exactly peaceful. [she draws her own axe]"

Hiccup was surprised by the similarities of the girls but wanted to stop the petty argument.

"could you girls please stop that. Astrid, this is my battle sister Midnight. Midnight, this is Astrid who used to be my crush until I met Toothless."

The girls put away their axes and Hiccup made them shake hands.

"I don't want any bad blood between my new friends and my old village. I'm sorry Astrid for leaving a long time ago but I thought you didn't care."

Both sides were calm now and Hiccup tried again to leave. Astrid again tried to stop him, pulling his arm back but as she did so she saw wisps of purple escape from his hands before a bow appeared, arrow nocked and aimed at Astrid. Hiccup was uncharacteristically mellow for a person in his position of aggression.

"Astrid I don't want to talk all day, you can visit if you want, the island is just north east of here, but I currently don't want to talk anymore."

Astrid, shocked at the show of force, agreed and let go of Hiccup. Hiccup's bow and arrow disappeared, and he started walking off with his fellow fury riders. While watching Hiccup and the group walk away she was annoyed with herself that she hadn't been able to remove Hiccup from the strange group.

She was surprised to see the number of night furies that the fury riders had and had a primitive instinct to flee when she saw them. Afterwards she decided that, bored with the normal village routine, she would find and bring back Hiccup from the island. She packed her things, left a note, and prepared to board a ship towards the island. Her mind overcome with excitement for the Journey and the adventure.

Hiccup cruised over the night skies. His meeting with Stoick had gone so-so and he really wasn't sure about Astrid. His mind dismissed the thought as he turned his attention to mapping the night sky above. Hiccup wondered about all the constellations and all the stars that he could see at this altitude. His wondering was interrupted with a shout from the side.

"Hiccup! Stop day-(night?)-dreaming! We've got to get back to the island and I wouldn't like it if we lost you."

Hiccup was shocked and confused: he was shocked because of the interruption to his astronomy and confused since he had never heard someone who cared so much for him. He decided not to mention the second part of his thoughts

"I was just stargazing. Never been able to see the whole night sky from berk through the storm clouds."

Midnight rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe you would just stare at the sky. Isn't it boring?"

Hiccup shook his head

"not for me. I seem to have this odd love with the stars after not being able to see them before."

Hiccup was overcome with a slight strange feeling within his palm. He looked down and saw the symbol on his palm had shifted again, now in a triangle of stars. He was suddenly aware of the compass points and the distance back to the island.

"we're about 10 kilometres out. Do you want to do anything before we land?"

Midnight laughed.

"unless we meet a dragon hunter ship? Not really."

One of the other riders close by gave a snarky remark

"she _always_ wants to attack ships, predictable."

Midnight felt the familiar feeling of shame until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Hiccup stood beside her on Eclipse's wings.

"don't worry about it, everyone's different. And I'm not as alone now I know you"

While Midnight churned through these thoughts Hiccup dropped off the leading edge of Eclipse's wings and onto Toothless. Eclipse gave Hiccup a remark

" **I'm glad to have somebody else to accompany my rider and I on our adventure [Toothless snorted indignantly, Eclipse laughed]. Ok, sorry,** _ **two**_ **somebodies to accompany my rider. She does seems to be blushing slightly, you may have been a bit too romantic with her."**

Hiccup, embarrassed by his own comment, ascended quickly to distance himself from what he assumed was an awkward moment. Midnight was confused by his sudden change of attitude but didn't pay much mind to it: he had supported her and that was all she needed to know. Although the other rider had highlighted an important point: she was very aggressive, a grudge against dragon hunters that started with her discovery of Eclipse.

(memory scene)

Midnight's story was similar to Hiccup, although she never used violence against Eclipse; She had discovered Eclipse in part of the dense forests around her village. Eclipse (unlike Toothless) was not used to dragon raids, so didn't hate the human on sight. They had become good friends with Midnight giving care and attention to the thankful dragon, thus it had only been a few happy weeks before Eclipse willingly let Eclipse ride her into the sky. It was during this flight that their marks activated, and Eclipse turned towards Fury island.

During this trip they came across a heavily armed and trigger-happy boat of dragon hunters. These hunters saw the night fury and unleashed their entire arsenal onto the unsuspecting pair. Eclipse barely got out, many wounds sustained from the heavy barrage of projectiles. Midnight too had been gravely wounded when she had tried to tend to the injuries. By being a human shield, she managed to give Eclipse enough vitality to glide, unsteadily, towards the island.

After being found and treated by the elder leader of the fury riders, Midnight and Eclipse both joined the cause, although they still had a perpetual grudge against dragon hunters for the injuries the dragon hunters had caused them both. Thus, whenever they saw any sign of dragon hunters came, the pair regained their aggressive vigour to attack and inflict as much damage as possible.

(end of memory scene)

With her recollection over she looked up again at Hiccup. Throughout the entire force of fury riders there had only been one other person who understood her; the elder, before Hiccup came. The others had always outcasted her, her extremely violent methods against dragon hunters was seen as unnecessary.

The elder of the island had always had bad run ins with dragon hunters: those with knowledge of the location of fury island. Therefore, she understood her grudge against dragon hunters.

Hiccup, however did not seem to have a grudge against dragon hunters, but rather much more peaceful and calmer. He didn't seem to hold anything against her for her weird personality.

Hiccup was blushing intensely on top of Toothless.

"I really hope the other riders didn't hear or see me. Odin that was embarrassing. If only I could disappear"

He said these last words as the markings on his palm vanished, soon his body and Toothless' s was invisible. He noticed the strange feeling and looked at his hand. The hand was a ghostly outline in his mind's eye and so was the markings that covered it. He then realised the same had happened to Toothless. Exceedingly surprised he wondered if he had gone invisible, just like he had asked. Hiccup urged Toothless to descend to the rest of the group.

Midnight couldn't believe her eyes. Hiccup and Toothless had seemingly vanished into the clear blue sky. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and looked again: Hiccup still wasn't there. Such a strange event and the loss of her battle brother had her confused and slightly irritated. She urged Eclipse up to scan for Hiccup.

Hiccup was very curious about the potential new power he had. He saw Midnight climbing towards them and came up with a prank that involved the turbulence behind Toothless. He gave his commands and Toothless heartily accepted.

Hiccup and Toothless, invisible, placed themselves in front of the confused dragon and her rider. Toothless then proceeded into an erratic flight plan, causing Eclipse to struggle to stay level.

Midnight was bewildered now; first Hiccup and his dragon disappear and now Her dragon is behaving erratically? Loki must be loving messing with her emotional mind.

Hiccup kept up his invisible trickery on Midnight. He eventually decided enough was enough and he revealed himself quickly to the pair.

Midnight and Eclipse gasped to see both Hiccup and Toothless appear out of thin air. Midnight, after a few moments of stunned silence, finally gave some dialogue

"how are you invisible? _And_ you messed with both me and my dragon."

Hiccup smiled innocently.

"Just another quirk of the powers [Midnight scowled at the unfair advantages he got with his strange amalgamation of the night fury mark]. Anyway, just trying to trick you. Catch me if you can!"

Midnight had stayed in her state of confusion for an inhuman amount of time. Hiccup had both disappeared and then he acts childlike in front of her? She didn't want her heartfelt friend to become another Crisp. (no offense to him, he is a good guy).

Hiccup quickly dashed his fake childishness. He hoped that her confusion would give him time to get away, but his hopes were crushed when Eclipse made the decision to go after him.

" **oh no you don't, Hiccup. You don't mess with** _ **this**_ **dragon and get away with it."**

Both Hiccup and Toothless smiled at the playfulness of Eclipse, but there was one problem, she was carrying Midnight towards the pair. Toothless answered to save Hiccup the embarrassment.

" **I would love to have some fun, but Hiccup isn't currently comfortable around Midnight, could you keep her away?"**

Eclipse was a bit sad to miss out on the fun, but She nodded and levelled off towards the rest of the riders. Midnight, sufficiently recovered, was mad that her dragon wasn't chasing the troublemaker

"just get him, he's right there!"

Eclipse kept flying straight, Midnight cried out in exasperation before burying her head into the fury's neck.

"Odin, you are useless sometimes."

The three participants of the trick laughed heartily at her adorable response to her irresponsive dragon.

They finally reached the island after an interesting flight. Each of the riders quickly landed at their own houses and entered, ready for the next day. Midnight lingered outside for a bit, looking at Hiccup. Her curiosity had not been sated and Hiccup was still a mystery, unsolved. She sighed and entered her rugged, wooden, and black shelter.

Hiccup was tired from his strange day. He wearily opened the door, shuffled over, and collapsed on his warm and comfortable bed. His last thoughts were on the day's most conversation, how would he stand to stay around her with that embarrassing encounter. The lights of consciousness faded into the variated darks of sleep.

Hiccup awoke as early as ever, he was glad for his body's strict waking as it meant he could have breakfast without the presence of his battle sister. He proceeded to the dining hall without waking Toothless, fearing the large dragon's steps would give him away. Stalking through the camp he was occasionally scared by the few wild animals that roamed the island but apart from that the walk was uneventful.

Toothless got up after a phantom feeling forced him to. He went outside and looked around for the source of a noise but didn't find anything. He walked inside, ready to shrug off the incident as a random occurrence but noticed Hiccup was missing. In his confusion at Hiccup's location he started manipulating objects to see if Hiccup was hiding behind any of them.

Hiccup was just about to bite into his meat when the sound of something heavy falling pierced through the silence. He winced at the sound and was wondering where it had come from when a subconscious voice told him it was Toothless, awake, and wondering where his kind rider had hidden. He was surprised but annoyed that his dearest friend had accidentally foiled his plans.

Midnight was awakened by a strange sound coming from Hiccup's cabin, she hurriedly got dressed and headed over to the mysterious teen's abode. She knocked twice before entering and came across a peculiar sight:

Hiccup's cabin was a mess; objects thrown around, scratch marks on the walls and bed overturned. In the middle was a hyperactive dragon nudging around the debris with his search. Toothless saw Midnight and came up to her with a curious croon. Midnight got the message from Toothless' s actions and replied to the unspoken question.

"I'm sorry Toothless, I don't know where he is either"

Then Midnight, remembering the most obvious place for Hiccup to go. Departed the cabin with Toothless following, intrigued, behind her. They reached the dining area as Hiccup was about to leave. Hiccup looked at Midnight with shock before turning invisible as he had done before. Unfortunately for him, Toothless could still see his outline and followed him. Hiccup tried to stay away from the happy dragon but eventually got cornered. Midnight, having justified that the thing Toothless was following was Hiccup, gathered her breath to berate Hiccup…

Crisp was confused and annoyed.

The loud noise from Hiccup's cabin had caused him to fall off his bed onto the wooden floor. Now with a sore body and a headache he went outside to see what the noise was. He opened the door and a water bucket fell on his head. He groaned loudly: why had he decided that was the best wake up system he would never know.

 **A/N**

 **Crisp takes the last words of this update away from midnight on account of his great personality and the lack of representation I give him normally. Great work, Crisp.**


	4. 4: time for a race

**NFF- the fury riders**

 **Chapter 3**

Hiccup recovered after the rounds of accusations, lucky that she hadn't been angry enough to hurt him.

Midnight huffed at the, now visible, Hiccup before turning to have her meal. Hiccup had sense enough to leave before the situation escalated.

Ghosting out of the dining hall, he came across a confused Toothless, his head cocked far to the left, looking at the door and then him.

" **why is she angry with you? Why did you leave early this morning?"**

Hiccup grumbled a bit with the memory but gave it to his curious friend.

"If you remember last night, when Midnight made me uncomfortable, I've been trying to avoid another awkward encounter. I thought it would be better if you were asleep, but I was wrong, now she's angry with me and I can't apologise. yet again the gods still hate me. What did I do wrong?"

Toothless nodded in understanding, nodding for them to walk off, Hiccup responded warmly to the dragons help.

"thanks bud, I would get out of this situation while she cools down."

Toothless cooed happily, he knew how Hiccup would get out of this situation, he bowed his neck so that Hiccup could get on. Hiccup smiled more.

"you know me too well bud." He said while getting on.

Toothless gave a short, happy bark before dramatically taking off, wingbeats propelling them to faster and faster speeds. Within moments, Toothless and Hiccup had left the island, leaving a brooding Midnight.

Midnight paced, eating some chicken, Hiccup just acted so _weird_ around her, constantly avoiding her presence since their last flight. Coming off her anger, that her closest friend had acted as though she was a stranger, she went over to Eclipse. Eclipse was not so accepting of her rider's behaviour and bemoaning Midnight's attitude in a voice only Hiccup and the other dragons could understand.

" **he was just trying to stay away while he dealt with romantic interests for the first time! I love you Midnight but that was cold hearted."**

Midnight was confused at her dragon's behaviour; Eclipse had just grumbled and shook her head for no discernible reason. Midnight then gave her Dragon a small statement of disbelief:

"why do you act like that? I just told Hiccup that he shouldn't be trying to stay away, why do you have a problem with that?!"

To Midnight's displeasure Midnight gave a haughty huff and another small piece of dragon speech, which she couldn't understand.

" **I can't believe Hiccup is the only human who can properly understand me, why is communication not a natural part of the bond?"**

Thus, Eclipse was stuck with the knowledge that Midnight couldn't understand that Hiccup felt awkward around her, a part of her bond that would need improving, some would say.

Midnight asked Eclipse to take off quickly, to find Hiccup. Eclipse accepted warily, she could still warn Hiccup of Midnight's presence and Hiccup would need to talk to Midnight at some point, since Eclipse sadly couldn't.

Hiccup was revelling in the scenery, he and Toothless flitted through the changing cloudscapes while water vapour brushed them, Hiccup was glad he could finally get some peace, but a slightly unpleasant sight came into view: Midnight on Eclipse.

He didn't despise the girl, but she had been relentless in pursuit of him, trying to be around to find out what was wrong. Ironically it was being around her that caused the issues.

He was about to urge Toothless to rush away but Eclipse shouted for his attention and he paused, he had no quarrel with Eclipse, so he would listen to her.

" **Hiccup! I'm sorry to bring bad news (literally), but you need to talk with her, she doesn't understand why you run away, and I can't tell her."**

Hiccup knew this all too well, it was inevitable that they should meet, but Eclipse's recommendation pushed his decision: he would talk to Midnight. He relayed his plans to Toothless, who had been ready to sprint off.

"slow down buddy [Toothless exclaimed in disbelief.], yes I know, but I need to talk to Midnight, so she understands why I stayed away."

Toothless, ever understanding, nodded, and slowed down so Hiccup could talk to the stressed girl.

Midnight's head was bowed from exertion, she had shouted herself out and didn't have much strength left. She was surprised when she felt turbulence wash over her hair that wasn't her dragon's. Looking up, Midnight saw Toothless, gliding, carrying a concerned Hiccup towards her. She sighed before slumping on her saddle yet again. Eclipse huffed at her rider's exhaustion.

Hiccup got closer to Eclipse. He caught sight of a tired Midnight on Eclipse's back and decided to keep his message brief.

"Midnight, I would like to apologise for avoiding you, I simply can't talk to you after yesterday's events. I hope you understand"

Eclipse gently uttered a ' **thank you** ' to Hiccup, hoping her rider had heard Hiccup's heartfelt apology. She turned back to fury island with hardly any complaint from Midnight.

Hiccup was glad he had finally confessed his awkwardness to his battle-sister; a term he found quite accurate after their own fight. He told Toothless to start heading back while he kept an eye out for Midnight, in case something went wrong. Luckily as the bracing air arced over the dragon's wings, they could see their treasured island. Hiccup continued his escort of Eclipse right to the ground, where he explained Midnight's exhaustion to the concerned leader of the fury riders.

While they let Midnight rest, Hiccup went to speak to the other members of his flight. He found them idly playing a board game, Chip was writing down some jokes he had made. They looked up at him with boredom before continuing their game. Hiccup found himself utterly confused about why they would accept such a dull form of entertainment.

"why are you just lying around here. Don't 'fury riders' get something more interesting to do?"

One of the others huffed.

"you don't understand. This island is made for battle training, not recreation, plus we've all visited the target range far too many times, even _if_ we can't beat your dragon's aim" he said the latter with his eyebrow raised.

Hiccup stood stunned. He was sure if he had a dragon there would be countless things to do. Such as… he was thoughtful for a while, what recreational sport was good for a dragon of speed and agility? A competition? Something like…. RACING! Hiccup's mind settled with a crash on the exceptional idea, why couldn't he make a racing course for these riders to enjoy?

He opened his notebook and sketched the outline of the island, he sat down and started to put points on the furthest edges of the outline; where the pylons could be put. He then ran the ideas past the very same person that had complained of a lack of activities. This rider was sceptical

"how are we going to get the materials for the pylons? Normally making a house is hard enough, making dozens of pylons is going to take _ages"_

Hiccup took this criticism in his stride, making had been his original power after all, he started concocting a mist, coaxing it into the shape of an elongated cone with a spike on the flat end.

Soon the pylon revealed itself from the gathered gas; shining with polished steel and a spike sharp enough to penetrate any rock. Hiccup looked proudly at his achievement. Yet again the rider (named Edmund) had doubts, even as amazement graced his features.

"can you create _multiple_ versions? just one isn't enough for a race course to cover the _entire island_."

Hiccup embraced the challenge again, the mist swirled diligently around the pylon yet again before racing off, randomly solidifying into the same kind of pylon as the original. Soon all the riders were shocked at the number of structures Hiccup had created, Edmund just laughed at Hiccup's apparent ease.

"that's a neat trick. Now can you _move them?_ "

Hiccup shrugged awkwardly after a long run of amazing feats he had no fantastical powers to move these new creations. Edmund laughed louder, joking with the embarrassed Hiccup.

"ha! That's the limit! Don't worry, we should be able to move them ourselves, you've done quite a lot for us already"

Hiccup let out a long sigh of relief as Edmund called his dragon friend. Once the dragon had padded in slowly into the group of humans Edmund pointed to the pylons.

"can you lift _these_ of the ground 'strong boy'?"

The dragon nodded, running over to the large poles before waiting to be connected by Edmund, Edmund quickly rushed to fasten the straps. When Edmund had finished attaching the load to his faithful friend he motioned for the dragon to rise. The dragon did so, wings dutifully catching the air and propelling him and the pole up. Edmund jumped onto his dragon just as he started to leave the ground.

Hiccup watched the faithful rider go towards one end of the island, before turning to the others, he expected them to be wearily looking at Edmund's departure but instead they were happy to do something different, racing past Hiccup to get their own dragons. Hiccup realised he would have to do something as well and asked Toothless to help. As always Toothless came over with a cheerful smile, interested in the task that the others would be doing.

While Hiccup went to get the straps for Toothless to carry the pylon, Toothless commented on the other rider's behaviour.

" **they sure do seem** _ **very**_ **eager to do something. Why can't you be that excited to do something your lazy human?" [his cheerful smile changing to a sly grin]**

Hiccup was surprised that his best friend had insulted him but was glad it was a teasing comment. He then played along to mess with Toothless' excitement.

"yeah, *yawns loudly* I _really_ am lazy, too lazy to fit those straps, so you can help the others."

Toothless' grin turned into a frown.

" **why do you have to be so difficult? I just wanted to tease you."**

Hiccup laughed at his friends' serious attitude, revealing his deception, before turning to grab the straps. He attached them to Toothless' legs and the pole before climbing on.

Toothless, glad that his rider was faking weariness, stretched his wings before taking his first flap; marvelling at the strange lightness of his payload, He waited for Hiccup's instructions on where to go.

Hiccup took in the aerial view of the island with respectful silence as Toothless ascended. He mentally traced the unique outline, the differing shades of green on the dark grass, the weird hills around the Isla- *slap* Hiccup recoiled as Toothless' scaly ear hit him in the midsection,

"all right bud, [he looks carefully at the map's marked points] position 4 [he saw another rider going in that direction] … no; 3."

Toothless kept waiting, eventually Hiccup would explain what he was talking about. It took another few awkward moments before Hiccup finally realised why they weren't moving.

"oh, I forgot to give directions didn't I"

Toothless gave a big smile as Hiccup caught on to his impatient waiting. The boy gingerly put up a pointing hand.

"that-a-way Toothless, we should be able to finish this soon."

Toothless gladly took flight, wings beating steadily as Hiccup kept on studying the intricacies of the race plan, he had to get the course appropriate for _night furies_ after all. He kept pondering and eventually developed extra obstacles: altitude restrictions and targets; Hiccup didn't tell the others about these developments, and it would take far longer to set those up than the simple pylons, but he thought it was worth it.

Hiccup collated the ideas onto his map, beginning to form a far more complex plan than he had initially planned. The new obstacles now had their own special set up; height limits were horizontal poles at certain heights and targets were the bulls-eyes that were typically used already; he had initially thought to remove them, since the riders had told him how bored they were but let them stay due to the challenge of firing while racing.

To make sure the others didn't try to place obstacles to their advantage, Hiccup placed these new challenges himself; he wouldn't be racing, just spectating, and generally seeing how well his plan worked so he couldn't be affected by the same bias. He carefully placed the obstacles well into the evening.

The other riders, although intrigued by the new activity, were impatient for Hiccup to come back and start it. They got their wish an hour later; a tired Hiccup stumbled into their meeting area and announced that the course was completed, although he stopped their mass movement with a snide smile, "I've added some extra features. After all; pylons are a bit boring." The shocked silence of the crowd was quickly broken when Hiccup dropped the rolled-up map onto the nearest table and spoke again, "so, at these points *he says, gesturing to straight red lines drawn across the course* You have to go below a bar; like a horizontal pylon. Here *he points to circles on the inland part of the course* is where you have to shoot your designated target, your targets have your formation numbers (numbers designating a certain position in formation) underneath. The finishing positions give a certain number of points and hitting targets also contributes to scores. Not following the rules gives a penalty; of course. You already know where the beginning is so you can go now."

Someone at the back, whom Hiccup vaguely knew as Dyle, raised a question "any of the other squadrons going to join us?" Hiccup was taken aback, he had been so focused on providing entertainment to his own squadron he hadn't given thought to the others. He gave a moment of thought before trying to cover up for his lack of basic understanding of the Fury force, "I didn't think they would be interested"

It was a weak excuse, and everyone gathered caught on quickly; giving him an evil eye. Hiccup gulped at this mass refusal to accept his deception. He sighed in exasperation before amending his statement; "Okay, I'll ask them if they're interested. If they are then I'll adjust the course to accommodate more riders." The response to this statement contrasted their earlier actions, they all congratulated him on his quick decision to do the right thing. After the congratulations had ended, the audience saw no point in remaining and filed out, apart from one; Midnight. She let Hiccup acknowledge her presence before beginning, "Can you spare anything good for a certain battle-sister of yours? You still haven't given me anything to properly apologise yet."

Hiccup laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. It was still true that he couldn't speak to her, but she needed something in return for his misconduct. He pondered the problem for a while, raising a surge of cognition while suppressing his rampant emotions, before slowing down as he finally began sorting through the ideas that he had produced:

He reduced millions of thoughts to thousands and eventually reduced the possibilities to one; this thought shining like gold after having conquered the other ideas; "I could give you a magic ability" he blurted out, actions had seemed easier than words; trading the emotional subtleties of conversation with the understated, but powerful effects of actions.

Midnight was taken aback, his gift of magic seemed to grow every day, but smirked as she made a plan to give him a surprise in return; "try a smoke screen" Hiccup nodded quickly, summoning the necessary command by a simple query, but as the magic began to flow it encountered an error; it quickly notified Hiccup of this misfortune. Hiccup's eyes opened wide, it wasn't just the fact that his magic had talked to him but the message itself; "you already have that ability!?"

Midnight smirked darkly, she raised two fingers and let black smoke seep from her skin, letting the deception be known. She dropped her hands again, removing the smoke as quickly as it had been produced. She now addressed Hiccup "I guess I needed to tell you about this at some point but all the riders, although they don't have as many abilities as you, still have their own special features. My one is smoke, and I could tell you about the other rider's abilities, but that would take too long."

Hiccup was astounded; his once-perfect thought muttered angrily in the corners of his mind; the path to redemption had been so easy! so efficient! And now she had to show him a secret which revealed that such a plan was for nothing. He drew up a shaky breath, shaken by this sudden surprise, and released it slowly; now was not the time to get overcome by emotions again; feelings of shock had come to him too many times, "surely you didn't accept my offer just to reveal yourself?" Hiccup said, keeping a cautious eye on her reaction.

Midnight shook her head with certainty, she responded calmly and with a slight edge of mirth, "No, obviously it wasn't the _only_ reason; although your face was quite entertaining." She lowered her voice to a more serious tone, "I would like some kind of healing ability; Eclipse sometimes hurts herself and I'm normally unable to help."

Hiccup nodded; it was perfectly reasonable to ask for something to help your closest friend; her dragon, not him; a fact that would hold true for a while, or so he thought. Hiccup went through the process again: gathering magic with an incantation, giving it to Midnight and Eclipse's bond and finally letting it go; after giving that same ability to himself, just in case.

Midnight noticed a faint tingling, which died away after a few seconds. She wondered if she really had the power now, or the tingling was a deception of her mind. She raised a question for Hiccup "So how can I tell if I have the ability?"

Hiccup stopped himself from laughing; the answer to that question was obvious when one considered the ability itself; healing could be proven by healing something; although this was perhaps a bit graphic for her to consider.

He calmly prepared a demonstration; pulling his short dagger out and deftly cutting his unmarked hand, before offering the swiftly bleeding appendage to her. Midnight recoiled, and Hiccup finally took this opportunity to raise questions of his own, "what? have you never seen blood before?" Midnight shook her head, before giving him a straight answer, "I have seen blood, just not this weird hallucination; why are you coloured in various shades of orange and red?"

Hiccup was unsure, but he came up with an explanation and hesitantly put forward his idea, "Is my hand a deep red?" Midnight paused a moment, still unused to this weird vision, but gave him a nod in agreement. Hiccup continued "I think the healing magic gives you a perception of how severe the injury is; I've received many burns and other injuries over my life, so that's probably what you've seen. And since that's been cleared up, can you please heal my hand?"

Midnight gave a brief blush at the realisation she had mostly forgot all about Hiccup's most recent injury. She cautiously moved her hand closer to his injured one and thought about initiating the magic. A weak green aura surrounded her palm, slowly closing his wound: Midnight was unsure why the magic was working so slowly, "surely it can go quicker than this? It isn't going to be very good for a serious wound or being used in the middle of a battle."

Hiccup took in Midnight's question, before offering his assistance to the struggling, novice healer, "its affect is typically increased in close proximity to your dragon, I'll help you finish that wound" He held her healing hand with his marked hand and let his large quantity of magic help her in her task; the green glow intensified and the size increased until the dark green glow encased both of their bodies.

Midnight was immediately overcome by the incredibly potent magical energy being supplied to her through Hiccup; she recovered 30 seconds later; enough to ask Hiccup about his strange wealth of energy, "where do you get _that much_ energy from? You shouldn't be able to have that much energy in your body!" Hiccup grinned, revelling in the shift of emotional power, to his favour, before responding "firstly, I have a lot of energy myself; probably due to my lack of physical strength, the magic compensates. Secondly I-"

He was cut off by a swift interjection from Midnight "I thought you were a blacksmith, by your mark; That typically means you have _some_ physical strength" Hiccup's sense of superiority rapidly shifted into embarrassment as she touched on a disappointing aspect of his life. His magical energy transfer dropped for a short period, his very subconscious being affected by the recall of memories.

She noticed his strange shift and he resolved to let her know why his mood had suddenly changed, hoping that she wouldn't think of him in a bad light from now on, "I was hardly a good blacksmith, I had a good mind but barely anything to do physical labour." He gave her his reasoning and moved on, barely letting her take it in, "As I was saying; Secondly, I am very close to my dragon at the moment"

Midnight took a moment to file away that detail of his previous life before taking the opportunity to question the information he had revealed in the latter part of his sentence, "what do you mean your dragon is close by? They're kept back at home, and I know your house is far away."

Hiccup looked hurt by her reasoning, although he swiftly revealed why he was affected in this way, "why would you leave your closest friend at home? Toothless never leaves me far away willingly" He stopped for a short moment to gesture upward, "he's up there" Midnight looked up and, seeing nothing at first, looked closer until she glimpsed the green eyes in the darkness. She was impressed by Hiccup's devotion, "I never thought about doing that before, seemed normal to leave them at the house."

Hiccup lowered his gesturing hand and changed the subject, "So, now you know why I had so much magic, can you stop the aura now? I'm already healed."

Midnight dropped the aura as an unintended result of her surprise, Hiccup always seemed to be in the moment; waiting for others to catch up. She was pretty sure that if he hadn't drawn her attention to her ongoing activity she would have kept on going. Hiccup noticed the swift removal of the green tinge and removed his hand from hers, letting the transfer stop; Midnight remembered that he had been holding her hand the entire time they were talking. She blushed a deep red; perhaps Hiccup wasn't the only one that was inexperienced with romance. They kept their silence for a while, apart from the occasional sound of caring intrigue from the Night Fury in the roof beams.

Eclipse became increasingly agitated by her long wait for Midnight, she should have been back by now with the rest of the riders. Eventually, Eclipse was impatient enough to run over to the common room and, ignoring the memories of Midnight preventing her from entering other buildings, burst the door open; shocking the inhabitants within. She gave a quick scan of the interior before focusing on her rider

" **Midnight! Why aren't you back at home by now?! I've been worried!"**

Only Hiccup truly understood the dragon's words but Midnight did understand that her dragon was slightly annoyed at her. Both the humans inside gathered themselves and departed; Toothless followed close behind; startling Eclipse. All four gradually made their way back.

Back at home, on his bed, Hiccup gave a brief reflection on his interactions with Midnight recently; there had been an impressive emotional exchange, and Hiccup didn't know whether that was good or bad. Left with an unanswerable question, Hiccup instead devoted his thoughts towards tomorrow's race; including what he would do if the other squadrons joined.

He finally ended these thoughts and let himself sleep.

 **End of chapter**

 **A/N:**

 **I'm considering adding details for the lives of everyone in the squadron and a few other relevant people at the beginning of each chapter. I'll mark these with "Bio start" and "Bio end" both of these comments will be bold and in their own line without speech marks, so you should be able to skip them if you wish.**


	5. 5: Racing comes closer, Extra Attention

**NFF- the fury riders chapter 5.**

 **A/N**

 **Didn't have time the first update for the bio to be added, it should be coming soon.**

 **End A/N**

The opening of eyes, the gaining of consciousness the next morning and a small pang of homesickness for Berk that went away as soon as he reminded himself he was somewhere better.

He had woken up before the rest of the riders; a trait that he had been determined to keep despite the other rider's and rider's dragon's assurances that he wouldn't be needed until later. Toothless, having found no reason to wake up early in his old life, did not follow him, even if he was his rider.

Having this period all to himself, Hiccup rolled out his map again and consulted the positions, reaffirming that he was happy with each placement. He then thought about rules; since when one has a Night Fury you can guarantee they'll try something bad. He came up with the following:

The dragon of the rider has to be on the designated side of the obstacles

No direct firing on an opponent

No ramming an opponent

No tampering with obstacles

He held up the scroll with scrutiny, observing his unique writing for any signs of holes. He knew that the dragon riders had their own abilities, thanks to Midnight, but he didn't know what they might be; so, he kept a space open to add extra in case they revealed significantly unfair advantages.

Midnight, having Hiccup as a battle for a while and not being as docile as his dragon, was the next to come into the mess hall. She reacted with a quick, courteous hello, before noticing the Scroll held in his hand and then taking a closer interest, "what are you writing?"

"a HTTYD fanf- Ah, sorry, I meant I'm writing some rules for the dragon race."

"okay"

She took a look at the rules for herself, before giving a quick chuckle as she realised an omission that Hiccup didn't know about.

"you should include 'no teleporting'"

"Some people can do that?"

"it's incredibly energy intensive, but I'm sure the riders that have it will try to use it at some point, they can go extremely far with each 'jump' as well."

Hiccup gave a small, "thanks," before writing that rule down alongside the rest. Then, while Midnight took her food, Hiccup went back to the house to sit down with Toothless, perhaps in the hope he would become excited.

He was already hyperactive, luckily the Night Fury rider's houses were designed with this in mind and didn't have anything for him to knock over; apart from Hiccup's possessions. Hiccup got slightly twitchy after Toothless almost hit himself with the knife.

" **Hey, hey, bud… please don't touch my knife, it's a keepsake, but it could hurt you."**

Toothless now noticed the blade with a touch of horror,

" **Why do you have that? isn't that what your village uses to kill dragons!? Why would you keep that around me!?... *huff*… *huff* I'm sorry Hiccup, I've just heard too many stories about the lethality of these weapons"**

Hiccup put his hand on Toothless' snout,

" **sorry bud should've known that it would scare you. Anyways… want to get ready for flying today?"**

Toothless now replaced his shock with glee at the thought of another flight with his rider.

" **when do we start?"** Toothless spoke with wonder

" **now"**

Toothless took that literally and flipped Hiccup on his back before launching out of the hut. He extended his wings as soon as he cleared the doorway and swiped the air down hard; causing them both to rocket into the air.

Hiccup hadn't expected this much enthusiasm from his friend and was actually terrified of the sudden movement. Toothless heard his cries of distress and flared to reduce speed until he could hover.

" **What's wrong, Hiccup? Are you afraid of flying now? I can land... it's not like I'm trying to… oh gosh, sorry Hiccup!"**

Hiccup had to quickly calm Toothless down before his behaviour evolved into full-on panic. He also hadn't realised just how protective Toothless was.

" **Woah, Toothless. I'm fine, just a bit surprised; that's all."**

Toothless gave a few draconic curses; while intermixing them with comments about Hiccup didn't know how much Toothless loved him. Hiccup was a little taken aback.

" **By Thor… Toothless, I'm sorry. I never expected you to like me so much."**

" **we're bonded, silly Viking, of course I care for you… and I need you now to control my tail."**

Hiccup had honestly forgot about his control; the action was completely subconscious; even now as he was aware of it.

" **I forgot about it, I'll make sure to give you an automatic tail soon, just give me time to plan it"**

" **automatic tail? I appreciate the kindness, but I don't feel it's necessary; I even like the interdependency it gives us."**

Hiccup sighed. After having heard about how close Toothless felt to him, it was only natural that the dragon would like to have such a close working relationship. He gave an argument back, making sure that the dragon knew it wasn't all about becoming closer as a fighting pair.

" **It's not just that, if I am somehow knocked off your back then you will be unable to fly away to protect yourself, I'm not letting you be forced into that fate."**

Toothless was beside himself with protective anger. Leave Hiccup? The boy did shoot him down, but that didn't matter now. What mattered now was that they, two very good friends, were together and would never be separated by anything.

" **why would I** _ **ever**_ **fly away? I would use an automatic tail to fight, but** _ **never**_ **to flee."**

Hiccup gulped; it was the second time he had disrespected his dragon's surprisingly protective behaviour and he was wondering how he had managed to miss the hint not to mention splitting up in any context.

Luckily, Midnight could be seen coming closer; interrupting their argument. Although Eclipse was the first to give Hiccup a message; in the form of a loud roar.

" **Hello Hiccup! Hello Toothless! Are you ready for the race?"**

Toothless grinned, Midnight was speechless at the sudden loud noise and Hiccup wanted to know some details that he had missed on his way home;

"Hey Midnight, hello Eclipse! By the way, do you know whether the other rider squadrons are interested?"

Midnight took a moment to recover before answering,

"Yeah, they're interested, all three of them. Although I question the logic of them all going at the same time."

Hiccup gave this some thought; the results were not exactly good; a huge clump of Night Furies trying to get to the finish line first? That would be hazardous.

"You're right. I think that it would be best if we split the squadrons up for their own races; then we could… put the fastest four from each race into the last? Then we don't exceed 16 per race and get a high number of racers per race."

Midnight nodded in agreement.

"I think that could work."

Eclipse chimed in as well.

" **I agree, but aren't you going to referee over the event? Sounds a bit boring for event you helped plan."**

Hiccup was reluctant to agree with her suggestion, sure he wanted to agree and race, but he also wanted to make sure no one cheated; since that would ruin the good nature of the event. Toothless then took this opportunity to give his own opinion.

" **I would love to race as well, let someone else referee the game."**

Hiccup wasn't so sure, knowing Toothless' attitude wouldn't change the fact he would need a replacement.

" _if_ I were to participate in the race, who would enforce the rules? I love the idea of racing, but-"

" **the elder."**

"good point. Yeah, he could help."

Midnight wasn't following their conversation,

"who could help?"

Hiccup realised that, although he had changed to English to let midnight understand him, he hadn't explained who 'he' was.

"The elder, the leader of the Fury riders."

Midnight now understood perfectly.

"well, that's sorted, want to break the complete news to the other riders?"

Toothless cheekily decided 'as soon as possible' without consulting his rider. He pulled up until flying upside down before a quick manipulation of the wings to roll them back to level flight; now flying back to where they had started the flight.

He arrived back at the mess hall during the time the rest of the riders came back; announcing to an expectant crowd of how the race was structured and gave a clear explanation of the rules.

Having heard this, the fury riders had different reactions; all were excited at the prospect of racing, but some were irritated to wait due to the different race time plan. And then there were the teleporter-power riders; they showed anger at the specific rule but knew inside it was for a fair game.

The first squadron up, Hiccup's own, scrambled to get to the starting area as quickly as possible. They were laid out in a straight, horizontal line to give no-one a head start. They were still missing one though, as Hiccup still had to get the elder's attention and his involvement.

Toothless and Hiccup had expected the elder to be hesitant about letting his force be distracted by the event. They were pleasantly surprised, however, when he was ecstatic for them to gain the flying practice. He quickly agreed and, after the rules had been presented to him, confirmed that he would oversee the event.

Meanwhile Toothless was trying to introduce himself,

" **hello, Elder friend, I don't know your name. Also, where did those scars come from?"**

The dragons took his comment with a formal nod, before she replied.

" **My name, as I have chosen to call myself, is Lightning. My history has been violent and tragic up until the eventual formation of the dragon riders. My rider and I have fought for many years, hunted the entire time, for the small chance to meet another like us. We eventually found such peace, but it was not without wounds; hence our scars."**

Hiccup gave a quick mental thanks to Thor that he had been gifted with the ability to listen clearly to this enrapturing tale. Toothless corrected him,

" **We owe our strength and magic to the god of night. We thank him above all others for the gifts he has given us."**

Lightning understood this and gave a questioning compliment in reply.

" **Well spoken, young Night Fury, but who are you talking to? All Night Furies know about the deity whom gave us our forms and our abilities."**

Toothless spoke with a barely-restrained delight,

" **I am speaking to my rider, he doesn't know about Night."**

Hiccup was desperately trying to keep attention on the elder, since the dragon's conversation would only sound like warbling to him; so, acknowledging that he understood would be surprising for him.

He kept eye contact, tried to keep attention to what the elder was saying, but felt it ever harder as Toothless and Lightning kept up their conversation. Although knowing the Night Fury was called Lightning did bring up a point: he didn't know the elder's name. He hushed him with an upturned hand before continuing.

"sorry to interrupt, but you never told me what you are called."

He took this question with a humour belying his battle experience.

"My name is Marth, and this here is-"

"Lightning isn't it?"

This was a strange occurrence to Marth, how had Hiccup come up with that guess.

"Well… it was 'flyer', practical name for him; acknowledges what he can do, but okay, Lightning is better. Why did you suggest it?"

Hiccup was put on the spot and turned to Lightning for some answers. She didn't give any, but the sight of her face was enough to give him an explanation.

"it's that lightning strike scar on her forehead, it's prominent, beautiful, and recognizable; I just assumed it would be the thing you called her."

A slight shade of crimson came to Lightning as Hiccup said that her scar was pretty, although Marth's reaction was slightly more exaggerated; he stopped what he was doing to face Hiccup face to face,

"Did. You. Say 'Her'?"

Hiccup paled; having a battle-hardened rider with dragon was not someone you wanted angry at you. He had to rush to come up with an excuse, hopefully as good as his first.

"it's uh… voice? I think it sounds sweet and generally higher than male Night Furies I've met."

His bid at complimenting his dragon, to make sure he didn't get indirectly angry, was both the best thing he could say to a, perhaps traumatised, veteran… but it was also slowly making Lightning enamoured; shown by the intensification of the blush. Hiccup decided to quit while he still could.

"erm… the others will be waiting, they want to race as soon as possible."

Marth took a while to let those words sink in, but he nodded and led them outside.

Toothless, unhelpfully, reminded Hiccup of his 'flirting'

" **you sure showed** _ **her**_ **some care and attention, why can't you give that kind of attention to me?"**

Hiccup inwardly cringed; of course, this would make Toothless jealous. He had yet to find out just where his protective companionship attitude ended, how far he would take this simple bond. It was not aided by Lightning following the pair; since Marth was going to watch from a stationary tower.

The elder's choice was mainly due to empathy towards his dragon; he knew how stressful it would be to force a dragon to watch as all other dragons raced; not to mention it might make them want to join in.

Hiccup had actually made the tower high enough so that all riders could watch without bringing their dragons into such a tempting position in a race. The dragons should stay in the mess with their food until it started; avoiding unnecessary stress and preventing other riders from tampering with the race.

Although, Lightning was clearly not interested in joining the other dragons in the mess, instead following closely behind Hiccup and Toothless. They did notice, but she was hard to shake off; years in combat had honed her tracking and perception skills.

Midnight was also going to the races, she was thinking about Hiccup and the thought of racing against her own battle-brother. Such competitions had never been seen before on the island and the idea made her giddy.

Eclipse followed suite until, very close to the starting area, she stopped and sniffed the air. Midnight was about to ask what had caught her attention until the dragon bounded off.

Midnight, in her shocked state, couldn't follow Eclipse in time as the Night Fury kept wandering.

Hiccup and Toothless were close to the beginning of the race track, both were excited at the prospect, and Hiccup even made sure that Toothless had some markings to show during the race.

But a curious Lightning still followed, which made Hiccup uneasy; how was he supposed to tell her to go away? She's already emotionally invested in him to a degree. He decided he didn't mind the attention, perhaps a solitary existence was having an affect on his choice of friends.

He was not expecting Eclipse to come in. She was happy, excited and Hiccup was interested to know what had her in such a good mood.

" **Heyyyyy, Hiccup."**

Not exactly the least-loaded comment, especially with the special interest she was now showing, he had to quietly confirm that maybe he had planned this race at the worst possible time.

' **hey bud, is it the time of year when dragons are specially attracted to each other?'**

Toothless laughed, which didn't help Hiccup's mood; that laugh could mean bad news or good news.

' **no, it isn't 'the time of year' perhaps you're just a lady's man. Lucky you.'**

Hiccup sighed, he wasn't ready for such things as love just yet; such events, as he saw it, would occur later, not now.

He blended his shy hesitation about talking to the girls with his desire to let Toothless know that he wasn't fit for this kind of attention.

' **Toothless, I've never been a lady's man, you know that. And now two** _ **Night Furies**_ **are coming after me? You seem to love the attention, why can't you have it? [he can almost feel the intense pair of eyes on his back now] let us disappear, before they go too far.'**

Toothless obliged and let Hiccup enter invisibility. The two dragons following behind stopped as they realised Hiccup had managed to find a way to slip away. They both switched simultaneously to infra-red to see if they could find him that way, but to no avail.

Lightning was especially confused; she did not think that Hiccup had that ability.

" **Where's Hiccup? I wanted to talk with him."**

Eclipse had prior experience with this talent, she was just mildly inconvenienced.

" **Hiccup's one of the rider's I know who has invisibility. I think he's too shy to talk to females, so he tries to avoid such confrontations."**

Lightning was unsure why Eclipse was even there; considering that she had said Hiccup was too shy.

" **how come you keep coming after him even if he's shy?"**

Eclipse snorted slightly; Lightning probably already knew the reason.

" **He's the kindest rider I ever met, even nicer than Midnight. He uses his ability to communicate with us in an endearing way; never to try to upset us or annoy us…"**

They had completely forgotten that Hiccup may be invisible, but not deaf. He struggled to come up with a conclusion to hearing those words; they were compliments, but also the reason he had this strange attention from them. His need to be discrete, to be polite, abruptly decided his mind.

It did not help that Toothless was still paying close attention to him and was obviously trying his hardest not to keep bringing up the topic of his admirers.

Hiccup now had to get out of this situation before the compliments got him. He pulled Toothless into a walk and then run as they fled the difficult encounter behind them.

Eventually, after a long time spent invisible, they arrived at the track. Hiccup had the intuition to distract himself from the harboured thoughts about the Night Fury's comments by designing; and he coincidently designed the auto tail. Evidently, being around Toothless had reminded him of the important task he had forgotten. He formed the special mechanism from the air and halted Toothless to let him fit it.

Toothless allowed him, hesitantly, to fit the tail. With the last part in place Hiccup walked in to see the riders of his squadron lined up to start. Although Midnight still didn't have her dragon. The other riders were glad to see him, but his attention was on what Eclipse was doing now. His question was answered when Eclipse strutted in with her eyes looking and then locking onto his features.

Midnight, of course, was happy to see her bonded dragon; but Hiccup was still disturbed by Eclipse's unwavering attention. Lightning arrived in the same condition and Hiccup remembered that he was going into a race against one of the Furies who was so infatuated with him.

He gulped hard.

The elder started the race.

 **End chapter**


	6. 6: the first race

**The fury riders**

 **A/N**

 **(Not for this story) I am trying to fix the link on my profile, hopefully it works now.**

 **End A/N**

 **Chapter 6**

The first wing beats off the starting line established a clear order quickly; among the other racers, Hiccup and Toothless were near the back due to their lack of experience. Midnight and Eclipse had a position close to the front, but then Eclipse purposely lost her position; a move that annoyed Midnight and worried Hiccup as she came alongside.

Here she stayed, right beside Hiccup even as the first obstacles came and went. Her tenacity was incredible, but Hiccup didn't want it; he had come for a race and Eclipse was treating it like a date. He decided to try to out-pace her at the next set of obstacles; a row of pillars hung horizontally off a cliff edge.

They came closer, Hiccup was still working on how to increase their speed and eventually he had it; he would remove himself from Toothless' back to let him turn better. He unfastened himself from his saddle and slid until he was clinging onto Toothless' tail. Toothless looked back in surprise, and was about to stop himself, when Hiccup urged him on, "come on Toothless, we can beat them if you just let me do this. Fly like I'm not there."

Toothless was hesitant, but Hiccup's obvious belief in his plan filled him with determination; he lined up with the row of pillars and devoted himself to Hiccup's plan. He performed a shallow dive to get underneath the first one, but afterwards he only needed a slight up-and-down motion to clear the rest, ignoring the clumsy attempts of the other furies to manoeuvre quickly with their increased width; a small difference, but one which allowed them to get far closer to the front.

To Hiccup's distress, Eclipse attempted to follow in their stead and forgot that her rider had to be in the same position as Hiccup was now. Midnight was quickly knocked off and fell to the water below; Midnight barely noticing while Hiccup quickly instructed Toothless to dive down and rescue her.

Toothless complied gracefully; breaking off his course and then starting an interception course to the falling rider. The wind whipped ferociously by, as their speed increased. Hiccup had to contend with the intense drag as he dragged himself back to his normal position on the saddle.

Finally, the streamlined Night Fury caught the flailing rider and Toothless tilted his wings to remove momentum slowly. The sound of speeding air quietened considerably as his flared wings slowed them down.

Now, with the aggressive dive over, Toothless returned to his normal flying speed and climbed to meet with Eclipse and pass back her rider.

The female Night Fury was embarrassed as Toothless dropped Midnight back onto Eclipse's saddle. She had been too obsessed over catching up to Hiccup that Midnight had almost died. Hiccup said some words that hammered this point home; "I can tolerate your flirting if it affects no-one else, but this… She almost died, Eclipse. Next time, please don't endanger your rider."

Eclipse was understandably ashamed of herself, but one part of his statement resonated with her in a different way; he hadn't said that the flirting was bad, only that endangering others while flirting was bad.

The realisation was almost enough to break into a grin that was at odds with the news of her rider almost dying. It almost seemed like the bond between Hiccup and her was stronger than the bond between her and Midnight.

Hiccup knew about this implication as well; he had been opening up to the possibility of being friends with another dragon and wanted to tell her that, while also stating the obvious fact that Midnight shouldn't be harmed.

The race hadn't finished yet though, and they were now at the back. Hiccup now had to come up with something, so they weren't left behind for the entire race. He concentrated on speed-related powers; selecting one before asking Eclipse to hang on. She did as asked, as Hiccup triggered thrusters that emerged from the skin. The nozzles gained a flame with a short pulse and quickly pushed Toothless along strongly.

For a short time, Toothless flew erratically with the new force driving him forwards, though he quickly regained his fluid movements; face set with focus as he climbed the positions, weaving through the competition with gentle, precise movements and then turning the thrusters off manually to concentrate on aiming; the next challenge.

Hiccup acknowledged this and told Eclipse to let go so she could fire for herself. Toothless' tail gave rapid twitches as he stayed dead straight on his target, even with the sudden change in aerodynamic profile.

He released one shot; the only shot he needed.

The plasma bolt streaked through the air, roaring in a slightly curved trajectory before slamming into the beginning of the target. Hiccup gasped; he had expected extra accuracy from Toothless, but it still shocked him to see the shot fired with such grace and precision.

Toothless could care less about Hiccup's awe waiting until Eclipse fired off her shot, grabbed onto his tail and then he fired up the thrusters to speed up again. The target range was soon a distant memory as Toothless approached the next set of obstacles.

Currently, due to the increased thrust, they only had 4 riders in front of them and two were in sight. However, they saw too, and one dropped back to start releasing smoke.

The cloud quickly expanded, and Hiccup knew that the slalom coming up would be impossible to see in the darkness of such smoke. He had to provide some guidance for Toothless and he stumbled upon the possibility of using fire to illuminate the pillars.

He summoned a bow, archer symbol appearing on his hand, lit an arrow and let it fly towards the first pillar. He notched another and repeated the process, bringing a hail of arrows to the tops and bottoms of all the pillars he could hit.

One pillar remained unlit; Hiccup tried to hit this as well, but the smoke expanded across his line of sight; blocking a clear view of the pillar and aborting his attempts.

Toothless acknowledged this with a brief moment devoted to understanding it, before switching his vision to thermal to spot the arrows. The surrounding scenery disappeared into dark tones of blue, with only rows of red from the fire arrows and the large dots of the other Night Furies to help him.

He was in the zone, using the previously seen size of the pillars to create a mental map of the area ahead of him; becoming more knowledgeable about the area ahead even as Hiccup was blinded by the cloud. The red dots became range indicators, showing that he was close and should start his manoeuvres.

Toothless embraced the challenge; swinging his body to one side to pass on the right of the first pillar. Hiccup, Midnight and Eclipse (who hadn't activated her thermal vision yet) suddenly shrieked behind them as they heard the proximity of the unseen pillar as it passed by them.

The same action was repeated for the second pillar, ignoring the cries of protest from behind as he tested just how close he could get to the pillar without impacting it. Even with the reckless actions, all three of his passengers passed by without physical contact.

Missed by a hair's length.

The third lit pillar gained the same response, although they were now coming towards the fourth, final, pylon; unlit and as black to him as the surrounding area. He was not daunted, even giving an incensed roar in defiance before releasing a large burst of sound; gaining another view of the area around him and letting him see the final obstacle.

He swung his body with extra force; the delay of the echolocation scan leaving no time for error. His body passed ninety degrees of roll as he passed, giving him the perfect position for the final obstacle to pass by without difficulty.

The force behind the swing was controlled as Toothless continued the barrel roll before levelling off.

The smoke was still in the way, but Toothless could still see their targets; two large red spots that were gradually coming closer. Eventually Toothless emerged from the smoke; a moment he reacted to by changing his visual spectrum back to visual light. The massive thrust, of the twin flame outlets on Toothless' body, let them easily pass the frantic Night Furies; going past their entire bodies in half a second.

The two riders below were astonished at the speed displayed before deploying emergency reserves of power to try to get back; accelerating the air going over their dragon's bodies to create a crude source of thrust. Their attempts were heroic, but to no avail as the pair of Night Furies and their riders kept on receding into the distance.

Now they were in a great position.

There were only two rivals ahead of them; Crisp and someone else. Crisp saw the strange-looking pair and revealed that he also had a propulsion ability; applying it to his own dragon and his battle-brother's dragon. They kept their distance, although gradually their advantage was lost as Toothless kept putting more and more willpower into catching up.

The challenging pair soon overtook the current leaders, although this pass inspired the leaders to go faster; necessitating even more power from Toothless.

Meanwhile, over the time taken to overtake the leaders, Hiccup and Toothless were now nearing the final obstacle; two horizontally placed bars placed one above the other. Toothless kept a straight course to the bottom of this course and then pulled up as soon as he passed the bottom pillar.

His tight arc soon took him between the two obstructions; necessitating a turn.

This is when the troubles began:

Eclipse followed through fine with the first movement. However, when Toothless rolled over for the second pylon, Eclipse didn't follow. Her gummy grip on Toothless' tail caused His fake tail fin to be twisted and ripped off as she fell off; she realised this, but only sook to regain contact and clamped onto Toothless' tail again before it went out of her reach.

This caused Toothless a great of distress; he managed to get over the obstacle but couldn't do anything as the drag of both himself and his passenger slowed him until the only option to keep flying was to dive. Thankfully Eclipse noticed this reaction (both of their riders were unaware) and released him before she caused him any extra problems.

Now Toothless was falling; his one tailfin couldn't stabilise his pitch or yaw effectively as he spiralled out of control. His Thrusters also couldn't do anything due to their placement.

Now Hiccup was aware of the danger, but he was also, understandably, panicked.

Toothless, having gained enough respect to act like the leader of the two for a while, conceded a request for help; he was trying to prevent the chaotic flight as much as he could and he didn't have the mental reserves to do that while performing magic, "HICCUP! HEAL!"

500 meters altitude, it took an excruciatingly long time for Hiccup to react; selecting healing and then fixing Toothless' tail slowly. 400 meters altitude, His progress was marked with Toothless' increasing control while they plummeted towards the ground.

300 meters, their uncontrolled rolling stopped,

200 their pitching stopped

100 meters, their yawing finally stopped as Toothless' tail fully formed; performing its intended function to perfection.

50 meters, one more rotation passed before Toothless pulled up hard; feeling the new nerve endings respond just 20 meters off the ground. The new sensations just made Toothless pull even harder; entering a sharp climb as his terror turned to intense joy.

Eclipse had looked on with anxiety while the two had dived; Midnight was trying to urge her to finish the rest, but she couldn't until she knew that they were okay. After debating whether to come to them or not she chose the former; rolling over and pulling up hard down to the ground. She hoped that her sleek profile would give her the edge over the flailing dragon, but she would have been too late if he'd had to be rescued by her; thankfully, Toothless regained control with a re-grown tail.

Eclipse took this moment to pull out gently, grateful that Hiccup and Toothless were fine. However, one of her previous thoughts came back, condensed by realisation; that she would have been too late.

A tear pooled in the corners of her eyes before being cleared by the airflow.

The nostalgic memories of using his complete tailfin rushed through Toothless. He wanted to test his limits; explore the sky with his complete, organic freedom. Hiccup, however, was still interested in keeping Toothless and their battle sisters ahead of their two competitors. He leaned in and respectfully gave his thoughts to the Night Fury below him, "Um… Toothless? I really like how excited you are… could we tow Midnight and Eclipse again?"

His careful tone wasn't necessary; Toothless was glad to help (specifically help that is, Hiccup was not his overlord). He turned gently, realigned his thrusters, and flew back towards Eclipse.

Both of them were happy to see the duo coming over to help; Crisp and his mysterious partner had gone through the previous obstacle and would overtake them without the help of Toothless' rockets. Eclipse eagerly waited until Toothless' tail came into view then clamped on securely; surprising him as his recently-gained haptic sensors were compressed.

He couldn't keep revelling in the sensation though; he had the opportunity to win the race and he wasn't going to lose it.

His thrusters fired up to full now that Eclipse was holding on; he gained a warm feeling down his tail when the heated air became hot enough to be noticeable past his scales. His speed also increased, although too slow for his liking; he manually created another set of propulsion nozzles and willed them to full power as well, leaving behind Crisp in a quadruple flame trail.

He also noticed, with some pleasure, that he could now use them to compliment his aerial manoeuvrability; Hiccup wasn't as joyful, his instincts told him that this speed was bad, this speed was not normal.

He was trying to hold back his plentiful screams of terror, especially when Toothless boosted his thrust and threatened to pull him off the saddle; a realisation that made him extremely happy to have tied himself on before Toothless had done that.

There was almost no contest left; Toothless surprised Eclipse by looping before the finish line without the advice of Hiccup, dislodging her grip on his tail and therefore allowing her to take the lead across the finish line before he finished his loop to come in second.

The race had finished for them, with the wonderful positions of first and second as well. Crisp and the unknown person followed close behind; Crisp personally cursing the unbelievable speed and teamwork they had displayed, even when he was still eligible for the next race.

The first reception of Hiccup, Toothless, Midnight and Eclipse's victory didn't come from people. Instead Lightning was the first to give Hiccup a warm embrace; to the simultaneous, immediate displeasure of Toothless, Eclipse and Midnight, then complimented him, "well done Hiccup, you've really proved yourself!"

She underestimated his current integrity; her slight weight enough to push his tired, stressed frame off Toothless' saddle.

If the close friends of Hiccup had been slightly annoyed before, they were almost enraged now.

Lightning gained a blush as she realised she had gained unnecessary attention, before Hiccup came to; standing upright as he acknowledged what Lightning had said, "Oh, sorry about that… I'm just really stressed after that frightening burst of speed from Toothless. I should tell you that it wasn't me; I owe it all to Toothless and my battle sisters [nodding in the direction of Midnight and Eclipse] I barely did anything."

The compliment had been moved from Hiccup to Toothless, Eclipse and Midnight and the recipient parties were loving how Hiccup still refused to take the compliments himself; showing humility and compassion with them.

Lightning sighed in disappointment; her comment had not been acknowledged, or so she thought. She then felt arms around her chest as Hiccup hugged her back; now it was obvious that Hiccup cared about her feelings as well. She kept her feelings to herself so that the onlookers couldn't see the effect he was having on her.

Apart from one, a very important one,

"Hiccup? are you hugging Lightning? Why would you do that?"

Hiccup had nothing to say to the Elder who had just appeared; he was lucky that this wasn't heard by the rest of the riders, who had yet to come. Midnight answered for him, aware that upsetting the elder was a bad idea.

"Lightning just came up to congratulate Hiccup; she hugged him, and he hugged her back, there's nothing wrong with that."

This, however, only attracted more rage, "Are you implying that she has romantic feelings for Hiccup? I've known Lightning for many years as her companion; she is a creature of battle and I've never seen anything else from her; just resolute determination. You are lying, she can't feel such emotions."

Lightning's expression had soured over the course of his accusation, before she abruptly head-butted him at the end. He turned in shock from Midnight to Eclipse to notice the look of contempt she had. His surprise was unmatched as he realised that Midnight had spoken the truth before focusing on Hiccup, "I guess I was wrong about that, lad. I'm sorry to have acted so suspicious but I really didn't expect it to happen. You've got something really special if you can gain her favour."

Hiccup smiled slightly; the statement was truer than the elder thought.

 **End of Chapter.**


	7. 7: the new Fury in the area

**NFF- The Fury riders**

 **A/N; I guess I like making Night Furies become friends with Hiccup, so that's why that theme appears so often. Like a lot of things, I'm working on making it better (not reducing relationships, giving them reason and two directions)**

 **Chapter 7**

Anyways, the race had finished, but there were many more to come. They had a short interval to speak while the rest of his squadron came in to finish.

The elder took charge; leading the rest of them towards the exit, "You've finished the race now, perhaps you would like to go off and rest?"

Hiccup wasn't so sure, but he accepted the offer on behalf of Toothless. Midnight and Eclipse followed him almost immediately afterwards, to his uncomfort, but he reasoned that they would go to different places; most likely he would have a short rest with Toothless at home and then come out again to watch the rest of the races.

One aspect that slightly concerned Hiccup was the lack of attention paid to him as he left; he had the obvious attention of Toothless, Midnight, Eclipse and Lightning, but none of the spectators had come down. Of course, this was merely a concern based on what Hiccup had seen, and most definitely not experienced, at Berk. They would most likely be watching the rest of the racers finish and this showed a welcome change in perspective to glory.

They walked through the residential area in tired silence, keeping a slow, steady pace.

"It's nice to be left alone" Hiccup commentated, just speaking his mind to a passive Toothless, who was weary from the race.

" **I'd agree with you on that, although I doubt that 'certain people' will be leaving us alone."**

"What do you mean, bud?" Hiccup said prematurely, before a quick glance informed him that Midnight and Eclipse were following behind, "Oh, _them_. I'm not sure if I want to deal with them now." He said, dropping to a whisper

" **Well, they're following us, so perhaps they want to talk?"** Toothless whispered back in a concerned tone; he cared about Hiccup's choice, but also that he wouldn't make himself antisocial.

With a shrug, Hiccup relented and turned around to meet their pursuers.

"So, what are you doing following me? You normally take a different route."

"Just walking with you, I don't get the opportunity to, normally." Midnight replied, and Eclipse gave a nod to show she had the same motive as Midnight.

"Alright then. Well, we're about to go to our house, so… It's not going to be a long walk." Hiccup stated, thinking that they would be slightly miffed if he cut off the conversation almost as soon as it happened.

Midnight merely acknowledged his statement and continued walking. Eclipse was a bit more persistent to stay, though.

" **So can I stay at your place for a while? We don't normally get time to talk together."** Eclipse asked, giving Hiccup an expectant gaze.

Having been subtly prepared for this by Toothless' encouragement, Hiccup gave an affirmative "yes" before yawning and entering his house.

The Night Furies behind him, having to go single file behind him, allowed Hiccup to talk to Toothless alone for a very short time.

"Why does this keep happening?" Hiccup whispered frantically.

Toothless hadn't been expecting this turn of events, but he tried his best to answer.

"I don't know, perhaps your attitude towards dragons makes you likeable?" Toothless replied.

Hiccup gave him a slightly tired look, before Eclipse happily nosed apart the doors.

"Hello Eclipse, welcome to my abode, sorry for the mess." Hiccup responded warmly.

The customary greeting was usual, but the statement about the mess was practical; the place was still untidy after Toothless had knocked over a couple of things.

"I would invite you to sit down, like my father does, but I'm unsure if I should say that to you being… well, you know, a Night Fury" Hiccup said awkwardly, he'd never had to offer hospitality to a dragon apart from Toothless before.

Eclipse didn't mind the awkwardness, she sat down as she replied to Hiccup's attempts. **"I'm glad you made the effort; you may be the only one that can understand, but even so, you are a lot kinder than other riders."** Eclipse said in a warm, conversational tone.

Hiccup blushed a bit at the compliment, "It's nothing really, just trying to be helpful."

Eclipse changed from her delightful expression to a more serious version,

" **You 'try' a lot harder than you think you do. Don't underestimate yourself."** She said, reprimanding Hiccup for his self-pity, before switching back to her normal, pleasant mood.

Hiccup was astonished; the encouragement was, of course, welcome, but there was something else he could identify in her tone; control. It shouldn't really have surprised him, but he was reminded that she was no pushover; recovering from a lull where he might have assumed as such.

"Thank… you." Hiccup said unsurely, too caught up in his surprise to talk smoothly.

Eclipse's smile took over her entire face as she spoke.

" **You're welcome. I know you have a lot of potential; I don't know how I know, I just do."** she said, somewhat uncertain about this feeling of hers.

Hiccup was happy to hear this praise, although he still wasn't sure that he had what she said he had.

"Are you sure that I have anything? I don't mean to be rude, and… oh god, that was rude, wasn't it? I'm horrible with this, horrible with everything" Hiccup confessed, feeling self-pity crawl back into him.

Eclipse sighed and tried again.

" **Potential, Hiccup. You may not have it now, but if you keep on going, find your determination you can be a lot better than you think you are."**

Hiccup was between decisions; part of him wanted to stick with his traditional view of himself; weak and worthless. Another part of him wanted to listen to Eclipse.

"I… I guess so. How did you become so good at encouragement?" Hiccup responded, with slight mirth as the idea of a dragon doing such a thing was so alien to his mind. He would accept it, eventually.

Eclipse's grin grew just slightly wider after this and then she grew nostalgic, recalling some memories relating to this.

" **I want to give Midnight all the help I can, but you know that we cannot communicate. I've had things to say to her on my mind for a long time now; even if I didn't think I could use it…"** Midnight said, a small note of sadness entering her voice as she recalled all her failed attempts.

" **..but now I can. So, do you want to face the world and show it what you're** _ **really**_ **made of?"** Midnight continued; excitement clear in her voice.

"I think I want to stay beside Toothless as he rests." Hiccup replied honestly.

Eclipse shrugged the shoulders of her fore paws **"I guess that's also an option, but tomorrow I want you, Toothless and Midnight to give it your all, I'm tired of watching from the sidelines; participating but never getting a say."** Eclipse said back.

"I'm looking forward to it, see you around!" Hiccup replied, sensing this was when she might try to take her leave.

She did, with a smiling face to Hiccup as she left.

It was around this moment that Toothless, who had gone to his bed and laid down while they were talking, spoke up.

" **She seems to like you, and I think that I agree with her on the whole thing about you having potential; your determination, your kindness, they're amazing."** Toothless said, smiling to emphasize his point.

Hiccup, still humble even with two legendary dragons complimenting him, made sure that they weren't missing out on the love.

"You deserve some credit; well you, Eclipse, Midnight and perhaps the other Fury riders too, although I want to say the truth and I don't know them too well. You're all… incredible." Hiccup said, in his best attempt to give mutual encouragement.

Thankfully Toothless could see what Hiccup was trying to do, and his intensified happiness showed the kindness hadn't gone to waste.

After that, Toothless gestured for Hiccup to join him and gave his best friend a dear hug as they lay down together.

Eclipse entered Midnight's and her house, feeling the tension leave her at the familiar feeling of finding a Safe place. She was anxious for tomorrow, but knew that she would have to sleep, the exhaustion from the race was already pulling her down.

Lightning had left Hiccup, with slight hesitation, to join the racers on the start line in preparation for the second race. Her entrance roused a round of surprise from the others and soon the audience could be heard, with her superior hearing, whispering eagerly about what she could do.

She absorbed all of this attention; showing off her body in challenge to the others, finally filled with the ecstatic sensation of preparing for friendly competition.

There were a few doubters though, mostly from those she would race against. She heard allegations of her being too old to have any kind of speed or manoeuvrability, to which she gave a quiet growl and a quick roll of her eyes; they hadn't seen anything yet.

The elder was busy, so it was decided the race would begin without him, for now. Someone gave the signal and the Night Furies eagerly took to the air.

Her first few flaps, straining herself after many years of slow flying, took an enormous toll on her confidence; she started to feel inferior to the younger versions of herself around her. But, in the very same instance, she found herself fighting back; calling up both images of her rider and Hiccup, before vowing to come in first for their sake.

Now she had motivation, and the temporary lead of the others quickly faded under the relentless pursuit of a war-hardened Night Fury. Just to increase the pressure further, she was quickly finding her wings and steadily was speeding up.

As the first obstacles came up she was fine-tuned for flight. She navigated the narrow turns with the speed and agility of her namesake. She went past rider after rider, making sure to give the disrespectful ones a mocking salute as she passed them; they would learn not to make such presumptions in the future.

Eventually she found herself in second, to the slight surprise of her pessimistic side. Here she took the opportunity to look around, wait with the knowledge she could easily take first with a few strong flaps of her damaged, but reliable, wings. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something intriguing.

At a far distance from the shores of the island, a group of dragons was being lead by a Night Fury. A part of her was glad that a Fury had managed to earn alpha status, but those thoughts immediately scattered when she saw it loop to come alongside the slowest member of the group and then claw its side, to the point of blood flow.

She felt sickened, and almost ran straight into one of the pillars, before she noticed it and hastily dealt with it before returning her gaze to the stranger until it disappeared into a cloud bank.

For the rest of the race she was distracted, but still she managed to keep her position and then fulfilled her vow of coming first as she passed the leader with a few graceful pumps of her wings.

Her position, especially for those that thought she would never be able to take the younger Night Fury, earned her a rush from the crowd. But, she had another issue on her mind, one she deemed to be far more important than revelling in this victory.

She set out to find either Hiccup or the Elder, to tell them about the vile thing she had seen.

Hiccup was threatening to go off to bed, as he had been for the past quarter of an hour. Again, he felt the darkness of sleep almost take him before jolting awake again. He was about to try again when Lightning came through the door.

Sitting up with slight sleepiness, Hiccup was polite to Lightning, regardless of his current tiredness-induced confusion. "Lightning, is there something wrong?" He asked.

Lightning took a short period to orientate where Hiccup was before replying, **"Firstly, I won't just come to you to solve problems, I might just want to be around you for a bit. Secondly… currently you're right; I saw something strange while I was racing. I don't like the look of it."**

Hiccup was now intrigued. Shrugging off his tiredness, he listened closely.

Seeing that Hiccup was now attentive, Lightning continued, **"Offshore, there was a Night Fury."** She waited for an interruption, but Hiccup wasn't currently up for conversation; his growing intrigue, however, did show that this was interesting for him. **"He/she was part of a group of other dragons. I didn't think too much of it, seems great that Night Furies can maintain a group and I think I'd like to do that at some point, but when one of the members lagged behind he/she… exercised extreme cruelty."**

Hiccup gave a silent gasp, he saw Night Furies as noble, kind beasts. This was a shocking revelation.

" **I couldn't identify whether he/she was male or female at that distance, but I do know that he used his claws on the unfortunate member of the group."**

Hiccup finally worked up enough horror to speak, "That's unthinkable. Does the Elder know?"

Lightning wasn't sure why Hiccup didn't refer to him as her master, but she decided this was a good thing. **"Not yet, I found you first. I'll go off to tell him now."**

Hiccup nodded in agreement.

With that confirmation, Lightning slowly left the room and Hiccup could add another worry to his list.

The idea kept him up for a while, before he went off to sleep.

Later on, at night, Hiccup awoke as his body refused to stay unconscious for too long. He tried to go back to bed, but he felt too energetic to do so. Muttering random curses, Hiccup got up and went outside to start entertaining himself until morning.

He got to the door and opened it slowly, wary of waking Toothless. However, the door hadn't been cared to for a long time and it gave an annoying creak in response.

Wincing slightly, Hiccup checked Toothless quickly, but saw no response after his quick check. Thinking it was an irrelevant problem, Hiccup continued, squeezing his body through the small gap he had created.

Now outside, Hiccup took another look around the island, this time in the darkness. His mark adjusted slightly but, since it didn't have a specific setting for night vision, Hiccup was confronted with a target-oriented view of his landscape accompanied by a targeting setup as his mark changed to archery.

This surprised him but, irritated, he blocked it and just settled for his natural night vision.

He admired the darkness around him, unlit by anything save the moon since no one was up at this time. Such a fact made him instinctually curious about how the island was protected against night attacks. Perhaps the presence of Night Furies helped to keep anything else at bay. After all, the Night Fury was the master of night attack.

His contemplation was interrupted when he was nudged from behind. At the dead of night, with no one else around, Hiccup naturally was scared; his mark reignited and he summoned a bow to point at where the nudge had come from, only to see a green outline labelled "Toothless, Night Fury."

It took him a while to calm down from his fear, but afterwards he confronted Toothless; "Toothless! Why did you come right now? You scared the life out of me!"

Instead of apologising immediately, Toothless gave his low-pitched laugh first.

" **Looks like I scared you. You certainly look funny when you're like that."** Toothless commented, making Hiccup sigh as he realised his mistake.

"It's not funny Toothless. I don't know who's walking around in the darkness and I could've shot you."

Toothless walked towards Hiccup, almost daring him to shoot, before nudging the arrow playfully.

" **I know you wouldn't have done that, Hiccup, you're too nice to do it."**

Hiccup cringed at the suggestion of weakness; it wasn't something he liked to hear.

"Don't say it like that, I have bad memories of things like that." Hiccup said, saddened by his recollection.

" **Hiccup, you may not have a desire for combat, but that is a strength, as well as a lot of things that you have."** Toothless encouraged.

"Uh, thank you. Still not quite used to compliments."

Toothless smiled in acknowledgment, **"Glad to help. Now, can you put down the bow?"**

Realising he hadn't put it away the entire time he was speaking, Hiccup put his attention back into it and let it disappear.

" **Thank you. Now, why are you outside? Nothing that interesting out here apart from the stars and moon."**

Hiccup took a quick look to the objects in question, but it wasn't why he had come outside.

"I woke up not too long ago because of how early I went to sleep." Hiccup explained. "And now I'm stuck like this until morning. I don't feel like going to sleep at all at the moment. Thought I might look around if I can't rest."

" **Okay then. Well, I can take you on a flight if you want."** Toothless suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea; I think a night-time flight would be good." Hiccup replied and then vaulted onto Toothless' currently bare back.

"Wait, I should've thought of this; I get rid of your saddle before you sleep, how could I have forgotten that?" Hiccup wondered, scratching his head. "I guess we should go back and-"

" **No, the only reason we held onto that flimsy piece of leather was so you could mount that infernal tail-machine. Now I can finally fly as nature intended."** Toothless declared, a defiant fire starting in his eyes.

Hiccup was a bit taken aback by his fiery determination but, regardless, he still took the flight.

"If you say so. I'll admit you've gotten me curious; what do you mean 'as nature attended'?"

Toothless smiled and took straight to the air, intending to show Hiccup exactly what he meant. And Hiccup's mark lit up again; obviously there was something special about bareback. As it flared into life, Hiccup got a bunch of visual information like heading, orientation, speed and a few more.

It seemed like Toothless got the same thing, as his flight staggered slightly.

" **This… is weird. I guess I would've expected** _ **some kind**_ **of ability, but I wonder why it happened without a saddle? Ah well, this is helpful I guess."** Toothless said, before returning to his previous, determined flight with vigour.

Without the previous staggering to halt Toothless' demonstration, Hiccup felt himself being first frightened and then filled with astonishment as they streaked through the sky.

"Thor! That's fast!" He said, laughing as he said it as childlike giddiness rushed through him.

Toothless wasn't finished quite yet.

" **I would hang on, this next bit may be fast-paced."** Toothless advised.

Hiccup was about to respond with a sarcastic quip of "you're not fast already" before he was distracted by a reading on his visual information changing. He checked it and it said, "Thrusters: igniting."

He had only a moment to wonder what it meant by thrusters, only to find himself thrown back by a burst of acceleration. In that moment his question was answered; it was the same thing that Toothless used in the race, but a lot more powerful this time. He almost began shouting in joy, but stopped himself before he disturbed the entirety of Fury island.

Instead he just whispered his admiration to Toothless after resting his head against Toothless' neck to get out of the airstream.

"You're a wonderful dragon, Toothless."

Toothless gave a short nod, hampered by the quick moving air in front of him, and Hiccup firmly believed what happened was quite simply perfect.

Until Toothless flared for a short time.

Hiccup was overcome with blood vision after the acceleration, before g-force management kicked in and he could look up and see a blue shot passing right in front of Toothless.

Hiccup thought perhaps it was another member of the Fury riders pulling a prank on him. But when he looked where the shot had come from, a couple of seconds later than Toothless, he saw a completely unknown Fury without any rider.

Toothless had already shot back; his blue shot helping to illuminate the other dragon. The assailant ducked below the shot before sending another shot towards them.

After seeing their current lack of success, Hiccup came up with an idea.

"Toothless, try going straight towards him!"

Toothless responded immediately, changing direction until he was on collision course. The latest shot from the other dragon missed due to the the change and Toothless sent another shot back in reply.

The dragon had just enough time to avoid the shot before he caught sight of Toothless. Wary of the confidence shown, the other Night Fury dived down rapidly, followed closely by Toothless who gained quickly.

Evidently it wasn't quick enough, and they pierced through a cloud layer towards an island they hadn't seen before. Hiccup was free enough to gasp in surprise, but Toothless was dead-set on bringing the other Night Fury to justice for attacking both him and Hiccup.

Their chase lasted a little time; constant tight turns by the Night the only thing that allowed him a slight lead. Eventually Toothless was only a single body-length away from the other Night Fury as it lead him through a tight gap. Whoever the Night Fury was, it obviously didn't seem to think that he would be able to follow through the tight place.

Lost in the thrill of the chase, Toothless challenged that notion.

He accelerated towards the gap and Hiccup was suddenly treated to the horrifying certainty that Toothless may have been able to get through the gap,

But Hiccup and Toothless together was just a little too wide.

He only had time to shout in surprise, with the ridiculous amount of speed Toothless had accumulated, before it was too late.

His only saviour was Toothless' instinctual urge to slow down after Hiccup's cry; allowing a very short wing flare before Toothless reset to go through the gap safely.

With the speed reduced, Hiccup tried to jump off to save himself, managing a few moments of airtime before his momentum slammed into the rock.

After he had gotten through the gap, Toothless was in a mind to scold Hiccup for the strange distraction that had cost him catching the strange Night Fury, before realising that Hiccup wasn't on his neck.

Fully aware now of the disappearance, Toothless arched his tail to loop over and look behind him. He caught sight of the gap he had just come through, noting, with newfound panic, that it wouldn't have fit both Hiccup and him, before plunging back through the gap to see Hiccup's broken, falling body.

In desperation, Toothless surged forward and caught Hiccup before pulling up carefully; returning to his level flight with a sigh of relief, completely forgetting about the rogue he was just chasing.

It seemed that the other Night Fury seemed to pick up on the weakness, it charged Toothless, but its mistake was revealed when Toothless, overcome with anger, gave it a piercing glare and then started firing shot after shot in its direction, feeling the flame ability replenish his shots far faster than he was able to do naturally, but not caring in favour of just letting the relentless rain of plasma shots come down on the other Night Fury.

It, whatever it was, was not ready for such a barrage; it dodged the first few, got hit by a few more and then beat a hasty retreat, screeching in annoyance as it fled.

Toothless kept firing until it was out of even his far sight. Finally he cooled down and hugged Hiccup tightly, hoping that whatever happened wouldn't extinguish the faint heartbeat he could still feel.

He flew back unsteadily, cursing the lack of a medical centre on Fury island; in the future he would be sure to reprimand them for the shortcoming; either furious to the point of insanity if Hiccup died or… well, he would still be that angry if Hiccup survived; Hiccup was important to him and damn them if they can't even give him a chance above natural.

Either way, without the medical centre, Toothless had to come up with another plan; eventually Gothi came to mind, from memories of Hiccup, so he changed course to Berk and accelerated to full speed.

He arrived rapidly at Gothi's house, whereupon he entered a hurried glide to land in front of the hut where he knew she would live. Without hesitation, Toothless rammed open the door, giving Hiccup a far higher priority than manners.

He entered a strange place, filled with the smell of injuries, but he didn't dawdle. Hurrying through the house, he ran into Gothi at which point they gave each other awkward looks; Toothless with urgency bordering anger while Gothi was confronted with the sight of a very scary, unknown dragon with what looked like a corpse on his back.

Knowing this haggard woman in front of him was the Gothi in question, Toothless took Hiccup off his back and presented him to the woman. She was hesitant, of course, but the offering of a seriously hurt boy was an obvious sign as to what she should be doing.

She was about to drag the boy to the nearest stretcher, as was the custom with patients she had to handle herself, but was interrupted by Toothless, suspicious of what she was doing dragging his bonded friend.

She understood in that moment that the situation, as she had assumed it to be, had changed. Instead of moving the boy herself she gestured towards Hiccup, to the bed and the medicine cabinet she would be using. Of course, it was a dumb dragon, so she wasn't expecting it to do much, but her assumptions proved unfounded as Toothless casually picked up Hiccup and carefully left him in the bed.

Now that the patient was in place and, although the method of arrival was different, he was still a seriously injured patient, Gothi gathered some materials, hoping that she could fix Hiccup before he succumbed; an event which would almost certainly be accompanied by Toothless ripping her apart for her failure; a thought that was sufficiently motivating.

Toothless kept a close eye on the Elder's actions, wishing he could do something to help, until he remembered about the same ability that had healed his tail. He didn't have the knowledge of how to use it, so he touched Hiccup's hand, hoping to extract the knowledge he needed. Gothi whipp ed around, still edgy about the dragon's presence, but she was treated to the sight of a green glow coming from Toothless' paws that was slowly, but surely healing Hiccup.

She looked on in astonishment, her gaze noticed by Toothless as he checked the only threat present to Hiccup. Gothi got the idea that she should be doing something; she hadn't lived this long by being incautious around dragons.

She turned around, but the implications of such magic were fresh in her mind; her herbal remedies were effective, but slow and sometimes caused bad reactions; this magic was new, unique and effective.

Of course, if she wanted it for her own use, she would have to convince the dragon, it seemed. Such a concept was worrying but, if it meant she would never have to prepare herbs or risk someone dying from even the smallest wounds ever again, she was almost willing to try and take on the dragon herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Hiccup gave a gasp. Toothless was happy to finally have his friend breathing well again, but he was slowed on his path to celebration by the realisation that he was still unconscious. This time he may need the healer's help, so he coughed loudly to get Gothi's attention, before indicating to Hiccup and then opened his eyes wide, hoping to get the message across.

He felt stupid for having to rely on this random Viking, and to give her such a strange face in an effort to communicate, but he was calm in the knowledge that, while she was with him, she was at his mercy.

She prepared her strongest odour, enough to awaken even the most smelling-challenged Vikings; the reason she had it in the first place was to awaken Vikings that had been accidentally knocked out, like in a celebration.

It had been used a _lot_.

Then she placed it underneath Hiccup's nose; getting him to shake off his sleep almost immediately. As he rose, he didn't see Toothless, shrouded in the darkness as he was.

"Gothi? Oh wait, I get it, Toothless never came back for me. I mean, he forgot about me that time and… Oh I'm spouting rubbish. Nice to meet you Gothi, how did you find me? I thought I was in the middle of nowhere." Hiccup said, slightly sad that Toothless apparently wouldn't care for him.

Toothless was at first in anger; how _dare_ Hiccup talk about him leaving him behind! He would never stop protecting Hiccup and keeping him from har- Oh. His resilience was shattered as he realised the meaning of part of Hiccup's statement.

' _I did, I did forget about him. Forget my pride, I didn't think about him at all when I went through that gap.'_ Toothless admitted to himself. Now he was almost afraid to come out of the shadows, to reveal himself after such a disgrace. But he did, swallowing his hesitation.

" **Hello, Hiccup. I… I'm sorry."** Toothless said from the corner. He expected Hiccup to look at him in anger.

Hiccup was pensive for a little bit, but even as he finished, he never showed anger.

"It doesn't matter." Hiccup said, simply, after a while.

Toothless was amazed; he had thrown Hiccup straight into a rock wall, almost caused him to die and he said it didn't matter?

Gothi had no idea what had happened to get to this place, especially how Hiccup seemed to understand the dragon, but Toothless' reaction told her it wasn't what 'Toothless' had expected.

" **What do you mean, 'it doesn't matter'? You almost died!"** Toothless said, with exasperation.

Hiccup smiled grimly.

"Because it didn't; if I died, then what would really happen? You'd be free, with special abilities and, even if those abilities were dulled, you would still have a pretty rich life ahead of you. Me, I feel like I hold you back sometimes; you're a freaking Night Fury, best dragon in the world, to my knowledge, and yet you have to care about me, the runt of the village who doesn't deserve someone like you? Yeah, it sucks, and I don't like being a part of it, so it really doesn't matter." Hiccup said, barely affected by the lack of interest in preserving his own life.

Toothless was shocked beyond words, while Gothi finally realised the species of dragon.

 **End of Chapter.**

 **A/N**

 **Although I got a lot of words in during my journey, it took quite a long time to wrap it up.**

 **Did a small word check on 03/03/2020**

 **End A/N**


	8. 8: Recovery

**NFF-The Fury riders.**

 **A/N**

 **End A/N**

 **Chapter 8.**

Toothless' shock turned to anger. **"And you'd give up that easily? That isn't what I expect from my rider,"** Toothless accused, his sudden annoyance worrying Gothi. Seeing her chance, though, she started edging towards the exit. Immediately, Toothless turned around to her and hissed. **"Don't you dare leave and call the Vikings, we're not done here yet."** He warned, before returning his attention to Hiccup. **"Snap out of it; we need to get back to Fury island."** He remarked. Seeing no response, Toothless sighed and snatched him; grabbing him in his paws, putting him on his back and then launching out of the door with such efficiency that Hiccup didn't have time to react. Gothi runs out as fast as she can, to see if they're about to wreak havoc, but she sees they've already disappeared into the night.

After the quick, frenzied movements to get them both out of the house quickly, Toothless settles into a calmer cruise; although the irritated look on his face suggests it was anything but relaxing to him. **"Get… a… damn… hold on yourself!"** He announces loudly and suddenly, releasing his frustration. **"Do you know how much** _ **I**_ **care for you? How much I would lose if you died?"** Toothless shouted again; hoping to get the message through. Since Hiccup remained silent, Toothless decided on a more radical course of action. **"Fine. I guess I'll just have to find another way to get through to you."** He continues, mostly to himself. Then he banked hard and let gravity drag him straight down into the water, whereupon he lingered for a while and then came up to the surface when he thought it was appropriate.

He quickly launched himself out and his flight style continued as though nothing was wrong. Internally, though, he felt great regret for having to do this.

Hiccup was stunned, shivering and stressed after that dunk, and Toothless tried again. **"I'm doing this because you're my friend. Respond, please; give me hope."** Toothless pleaded; not wanting to do that same manoeuvre again to his best friend. To his relief, Hiccup shook himself out of it; the harsh conditions underwater allowed his mind to effectively reboot, and now his calm, optimistic side had returned.

"Sorry, Toothless…" Hiccup started, and Toothless stayed silent, wondering what he'd say next.

"I've been acting strangely recently; I do know that you care about me, and I don't want you to be sad. I was just… shocked after the crash. I wasn't thinking properly." Hiccup apologised, thankful for his clear mind, and hoping Toothless would understand.

Toothless stayed quiet for a long time, so Hiccup was worried he hadn't forgiven him.

Eventually, he spoke up. **"I was worried that you would stay in that infernal state of mind forever. Welcome back, my friend."** Toothless replied, subdued warmth in his words.

"Thanks." Hiccup replied, but he was still cold. "Could you provide me some fire? I'm frozen from that water." Hiccup asked, and Toothless immediately obliged; chucking out a small spark of flame that Hiccup took and increased to a small fire which he put in front of him to warm the air and him.

" **I'm sorry that I had to do it, but I had no choice."** Toothless said, feeling guilty.

Though slightly lost in the beauty of flames that was warming him up, Hiccup replied.

"Don't worry, I understand. Thank you." Hiccup said, succinct and with gratitude for what he'd done. In fact, he leant down and hugged Toothless' neck, just to prove that his gratefulness was sincere. Toothless leaned his neck back into it in response.

They flew like that for a long time, back to the island; neither of them wanting that moment to end so soon.

Eventually, though, they reached the island as dawn broke; they redirected to the mess hall to eat their breakfast, which they ate together, such was the kinship they had regained.

After roughly half an hour of them eating together, with Toothless helping Hiccup recover from the cold while Hiccup occasionally joked to Toothless as his humour thawed. Then Midnight came in, followed by Eclipse.

"Ah, I see you've come in early, as always." Midnight commented.

"Well, we've actually had an interesting night." Hiccup said, calmly.

"Oh, really? You were up last night?" Midnight said, though her curiosity wasn't triggered yet.

"Well, firstly we found another Night Fury." Hiccup said, pretty predictably getting her attention.

"And?"  
"Well, it attacked us, then we gave chase." Hiccup said. Both Midnight and Eclipse were shocked; after spending such a long time with dragons, it seemed impossible that a Night Fury could act so aggressively.

"Toothless tried to pursue it through a gap in the rock that was too narrow, and that's when I blacked out." Hiccup said. Toothless shook his head sadly as he was reminded of his actions.

"You… you hit a rock? In mid-flight?" Midnight asked, incredulous.

Hiccup nodded. "Yes, but I don't know what happened next." Hiccup said slowly, sipping some water which had been warmed by Toothless.

Toothless was about to explain the story from his perspective, but he realised Midnight couldn't understand a word, unlike Hiccup, and that same person was still a bit too cold to translate for him. Muttering slightly with the inconvenience, Toothless went silent again.

"All I can remember next is waking up in my old village's healing place, and my first thought, especially after seeing the woman who works there, was that I was rescued by my village. I am… disappointed that I lost hope so quickly; I should've known that Toothless would help, but I assumed he was too busy with the Night Fury." Hiccup explained. "He rescued me, I know that now, and I hope that I can repay the favour." Hiccup continued, looking at Midnight for the sake of conversation, but Toothless to dedicate his understanding of what Toothless had done for him.

"Okay then, quite a story, quite a story; perhaps we could join you the next time? You know, being your battle sisters after all?" Midnight suggests with jest.

Hiccup nods gently. "Yeah, Perhaps I should've asked you, but on the other hand that would have meant waking you up; I want you to have some sleep." He said tenderly.

Midnight smiles back. "Well, thank you for thinking about me, but I want adventure too!"

Hiccup submits, smiling. "Fine, you can have your adventure… next time." He states, in a mock-exasperated tone.

Midnight giggles with glee, but tones it down a bit after the others start arriving. "So, third race now! People seem to be enjoying it." She said warmly.

Hiccup smiled, thinking about his growing pride in the concept; "I didn't think it would get this far; I was expecting people to just decide it wasn't for them and quit." Hiccup said, shrugging.

Midnight laughed at his slightly-flawed logic. "You seem to have forgotten that this is an island full of literally only Night Fury riders; you, me and everyone else. For us, flying is a form of recreation, and then _you_ came along and made it a form of competition; can you blame us for being interested?" Midnight replied, humoured.

Hiccup leant back and let out a silent "oh."; it was so obvious in hindsight. "Well, since it is a popular thing, perhaps I should spectate at some point."

Midnight started laughing again. "Of course you should! You helped design the course and you didn't even watch the second race!" she mocked.

Hiccup sighed in defeat. "I guess so, but I need to speak to the Elder first." Hiccup said, back on his original subject, hand on table in a 'let's get serious' gesture.

Midnight nodded. "He needs to know; if we've got a rogue Night Fury out there, then eventually something's going to happen, most likely something bad." She said, concerned.

Hiccup nodded right back, but since he had nothing to reply with, he just went back to eating.

While they'd been talking, Toothless and Eclipse had been doing the same, though it was only when Hiccup distracted himself with eating his breakfast that he noticed what they were saying.

"… **came out of nowhere! I was lucky I could sense it before it hit us; that alone would probably have killed Hiccup. So I went after him, but he was very agile; I'd almost caught him, though, and then he went through the split."** Toothless explained to Eclipse.

" **The split where Hiccup got hit?"** Eclipse guessed correctly.

Toothless shuddered violently. **"Yes, that split; that damned Night Fury almost killed Hiccup indirectly; and he** _ **must've**_ **known that it was too narrow for a dragon and rider to go through!"** Toothless said, piling on blame.

" **What about you, why didn't you realise?"** Eclipse asked, although she already knew the painful answer.

" **I… I forgot him. In that moment I didn't remember he was on my back."** Toothless replied, still as remorseful as he had been the first time.

Now that he was fine in the head, Hiccup couldn't help but lend Toothless some emotional support. He put down his cutlery and stood up to hug Toothless and stroke him lovingly, to the confusion of other riders, but Hiccup didn't care.

"It was an accident, Toothless, an accident; there's nothing you could do now to change it; I'm fine, you're fine, we can move on." Hiccup whispered, urging Toothless.

" **Yes, but it could happen again. You said it yourself when you were in that village hut; you thought I had abandoned you and, in a sense, I had."** Toothless said, before gaining an angry tone and glare.. **"I keep reminding myself that you could've** _ **died!**_ **There are no second chances, Hiccup! If you die, then I lose my best friend, forever and always."** He raged, and then crashed back down, ducking his head in sadness. **"I just want you to be safe. And if that's my fault, well then that's unacceptable."** Toothless finished, before continuing to hold the same hold, slowly melting into Hiccup as he let his frustrations out.

His outburst had the others present either mystified or scared; and they had, almost without fail, moved away from the strangely-behaving Night Fury. Hiccup, however, wasn't fazed. He just kept up his embrace and massage. After a while, Hiccup suggested an option. "I think we might want to go outside; your performance is making a few people suspicious." Hiccup suggested.

Toothless agreed. **"Of course, but you should know I barely care for what they care about."** Toothless stated, rebelliously.

Hiccup had to smile at his dragon's personality, and then lead him outside; followed by Eclipse and Midnight, who wanted to escort their battle brothers.

Once they were out of the commotion, Hiccup looked to Toothless, "Okay, so now we don't have any prying eyes. Are you better now?" Hiccup asked.

" **Of course, why wouldn't I be; I may be regretful of what I did then, but I've got you here now, and that's good enough for me."** Toothless said. Hiccup was curious as to why Toothless had recovered so well, but he brushed that aside and just was thankful that Toothless didn't seem to be in emotional turmoil like before.

" **And me"** Eclipse seconded, causing Hiccup's happy expression to turn red as he blushed in response; he'd forgotten about the random infatuation that Eclipse and Lightning had developed on him (and perhaps Toothless, but it was awfully hard to tell with his best friend.)

"What are you talking about?" Midnight queried, completely unsure of what the Night Furies were saying underneath the veil of the dragon language.

"Well, Toothless was feeling bad about… what happened earlier, so I wanted to help him, I hope he's feeling better now." Hiccup said, both purposefully ignoring the exact description of the event and feeling awkward about explaining Toothless as though he wasn't right next to him.

"He'll be fine, dragons are tough when it comes to these things." Midnight stated, to the uncertain looks of Eclipse and Toothless. For their sake, Hiccup tried to explain what was wrong.

"I would be careful saying that; you should know that dragons have human emotions; they may look all tough and scaled, but they've got soft emotions." Hiccup replied, to the incredulity of the same two dragons from before.

" **How did you know about that?"** Toothless asked, curious.

Hiccup could only shrug back to him, awkwardly. "I… guessed. Sorry."

Toothless was appreciative of his effort. " **No need to apologise, it was a good guess."** Toothless responded.

Hiccup accepted that, giving a smile to Toothless for the support. "Thanks Toothless." He said back.

Midnight and Eclipse had been watching the events unfold almost silently, apart from their brief interruptions for confusion or agreement. For them, it was interesting enough to just see how their relationship worked and how they treated each other which, evidently, was quite kindly.

"You seem to be busy with talking, I guess we should take our leave, unless you want us to stay?" Midnight offered.

Hiccup mulled over her offer. "Well, Perhaps you could share something with me about yourself. It must get boring just listening to us talking about our problems all the time." Hiccup admitted, guiltily, but Midnight didn't agree.

"Not really; you seem to have gotten yourself into quite a situation, and it's only natural that you'd be re-sorting your relationship now; I'd probably be confused if Eclipse threw me into a rock." She said, to Hiccup and Toothless' immediate wincing. "Oh sorry, forgot." Midnight apologised.

Hiccup waved it off. "No matter, it's fine. But were you thinking anything last night? And what happened in the races that I missed?" Hiccup said, steering the subject back.

"Well, I think you'd be glad to know that Lightning got first in yesterday's race." Midnight stated.

"I thought she might; she's got a good mind and a good body." Hiccup commented. Of course, such a statement did not go by unnoticed.

"And what about me?" Midnight, Eclipse and Toothless replied, simultaneously, to Hiccup's surprise.

"Uh… well…uhm." He started, too shocked to speak at first, though they, especially Eclipse and Toothless, waited expectantly

"Well, I think you've all got amazing capabilities; I've been shocked at your performance far too many times for me to count. It's an honour to be with you." Hiccup complimented, sincerely.

Midnight and Eclipse smiled and when back to listening, Toothless nudged him gently in thanks.

"I think we should probably go to the elder now; I think he should know about this." Hiccup stated, walking off in the general direction of the elder's house.

"Of course, I don't want to hear about any more riders encountering him… or her." Midnight agreed, noting that Hiccup and Toothless didn't really have a definite idea of the dragon's gender.

Eclipse was sceptical.

" **It's probably a male; after all, they're the ones that are typically so ruthless."** She said, trying to narrow down the choices.

Hiccup nodded. "That _would_ make sense, and if we have a male dragon around here then we should probably beware; from my experience, men are a little too easy to anger." Hiccup said, shuddering as he had memories of the Vikings rampaging through the village looking for dragons to kill, especially since they would probably kill Toothless in a heartbeat.

"I don't know what she said, but you say it's a male dragon? Sounds logical." Midnight agreed.

With this fact in their mind, they reached the observation tower, where the Elder had already set himself up, with Lightning beside him; who instantly perked up when she saw Hiccup come in.

" **Hello Hiccup!"** Lightning greeted him, giving a hug. Hiccup was caught off guard, and Eclipse decided to also give him a sneaky embrace from behind as well.

"Aw, you girls." Hiccup mock-complained. "I always knew dragons would come after me." He said, again trying to create humour, before becoming more serious. "I do have to speak to the Elder though." He explained, and they let him go forwards.

"So, you want to talk to me about something, about the race, I presume? I don't know why Lightning decided to race, but she seemed to be doing very well." The Elder replied.

"I would say so; she's got a wonderful flying body." He said, before talking to Lightning. "Do you mind me touching you?" he asked, and she agreed, trusting him.

He brought his hand along the area under her wings; pressing against the corded, strong muscles underneath; "I mean, it's quite obvious just from looking, but after feeling it I can confirm that yes, Lightning has a well built flying body. I think that the flying you've done with Lightning has really toughened her up; she looks great." Hiccup commented, constantly praising her, to which she blushed.

Toothless and Eclipse were now curious, of course, of what Hiccup thought about them. **"So what about us?"** They said in unison.

Hiccup pondered it for a bit; "Eclipse; you seem to have pretty light musculature, just saying; I would say that Midnight doesn't take you out flying much, but that's just a guess." He said. Eclipse's nodding and Midnight's guilt served to confirm that.

"Now, my friend Toothless; You're kind of in the same boat as Lightning; you seem to have a very strong body; probably from… well I actually have no idea what you did before."

" **Well, it was normally raiding your village."** Toothless confessed shyly.

"Oh right. Well it does explain the flying experience you have." Hiccup said, somewhat mixed feelings about Toothless attacking the village but, at the same time, Hiccup loved him too much to feel bad at him.

The Elder stomped quite loudly to get Hiccup's attention. "So, did you just want to talk to me about the race then? Because if you need to go to have this… _converstion_ somewhere else then just go." He advised.

This brought Hiccup back to the reason why he was here. "I'm sorry, sir, I got distracted; I had an encounter with a wild Night Fury last night; suffice to say it was not kind to me at all."

The elder rubbed his chin. "I see, so did you encounter him on the island?"

"No, I found him on a pleasure flight for just me and Toothless. Why is th-"

"If he isn't on the island then he's of little concern to me, just tell me where you encountered him and I'll warn the flights going that way; Night Furies are naturally territorial if they settle down somewhere private; we just have to leave him alone."

Hiccup was about to argue, but the logic seemed sound. "I… I guess so." He said, accepting.

"Well, I think that our business here is attended to; no need to worry so much, Hiccup, I've got it under control; perhaps you could busy yourself with preparing to watch the race? I know that you put quite a lot of effort into it." The elder replied, with finality.

"Okay sir." Hiccup replied, sombrely. He headed over to the edge of the tower and traced the route; at first imagining how the dragons would fly through it.

Then he saw something that caught his attention; a lone Night Fury walking on the outskirts. As he watched, it spotted him and slunk over the edge; using its claws to climb down, before disappearing out of sight.

 **End of chapter.**

 **A/N:**

 **Did it, I finally did it… that took me a long time to get myself motivated and to think of what to do.**

 **The Fury riders are very vague at the moment, so you can suggest descriptions of Furies and riders within each squadron. Please make sure that they come complete; human and dragon, and make sure not to be godlike with powers. (please suggest which squadron; 1,2,3 or 4 they are in if you submit a request)**

 **End A/N**


	9. 9: Return of rogue

**NFF-The Fury riders**

 **A/N**

 **Thanks to all you readers and especially you reviewers who've gotten this far. It's because of you that I keep writing as I do.**

 **I've been busy with other stories for friends quite recently, leading to deficits in my own set of work updates.**

 **I don't believe I've given the elder a name yet, so I'll give him the name Resil.**

 **End A/N**

 **Chapter 9.**

The fact that Night Fury was there, so close to the island, was enough to send shivers of fear down Hiccup's spine. _'What's it doing here? Is it going to try and interfere with the races?'_ he thought, concerned about the safety of the riders who were just about to race; since the track ran so close to where that rogue was hanging out. Hopefully the Night Fury would leave them alone, but they couldn't be sure and they needed to be sure; everyone's safety relied on that fact.

"Toothless, I need to check something out." Hiccup said kindly, with Toothless complying eagerly a few seconds later; curious about what it might be.

Mounting up bareback onto Toothless, Hiccup's attention was not distracted by the flight data that came up in his vision; instead, he pointed towards the area he'd last seen the Night Fury. "Fly us over there, please." He asked politely and, again, Toothless agreed as he took a couple of running steps before leaping off.

Taking a short fall without his wings open, for speed, Toothless then spread them wide and let his aerodynamic form carry them quickly over to where they'd seen that rogue; human and dragon scanning for any sign of an attack as the wind whistled past.

Thankfully their short glide went without incident; it didn't seem like the dragon was crafty enough to attack their flanks. But he could still be planning an ambush; so Hiccup and Toothless were cautious before leaning over the ledge.

"You've got my back, bud, right?" Hiccup asked as a question of confidence.

Toothless nodded. **"Always, twig."** He said, with a slight smirk at his nickname.

Hiccup sighed at his games, turning his attention to the task at hand as he peeked over the corner; coming face-to-face with a Night Fury.

They exchanged glances for a moment before the rogue started charging; where Hiccup decided it might be best if he didn't keep his head in the firing line. Interestingly enough, the shot never finished firing and, as Hiccup looked down the cliff in confusion, he saw the Night Fury getting away.

Toothless growls and sends a few shots in the direction of the retreating Night Fury; intending to pay it back for tricking him into hurting his rider earlier, but Hiccup puts his hand over Toothless' muzzle and urges him to stop.

Confused, Toothless stops firing and turns to Hiccup with a cocked head.

" **Why are you letting him get away?"** He asked, knowing he could've managed to hit at least one of his shots and knock him out of the air.

"We aren't going to become friends with him by lighting him up with your shots." Hiccup explains.

Toothless isn't angry with Hiccup for this, but his expression clearly shows some distaste for the words, responding with; **"He shot us, I'm shooting him back; simple as that. Now, since he's out of range, I guess we'll have to follow him."** Toothless said, sighing after the final sentence when he thought of the effort he would have saved if he'd just kept shooting. However, he pulled himself back from that thought with a scowl; knowing that would be betraying his closest friend.

"Toothless, are you okay?" Hiccup said, concerned from Toothless' face.

Toothless shook his thoughts away. **"Never better when I'm with you, now let's go after him."** Toothless reiterated with kindness towards his rider.

Hiccup blushed at the nice words, but Toothless wasn't going to continue letting that rogue disappear into the blue; he grabbed Hiccup and slung him onto his back before taking off in a hurry.

"Toothless, Toothless, STOP!" Hiccup shouted. Toothless purposefully ignored him; locking down on the task of chasing down that Night Fury. He would definitely need all of his concentration, since the rogue was moving into a rock formation for some reason.

"TOOTHLESS, NOT AGAIN!" Hiccup said, this time more shouted. It brought some confusion to Toothless; what did he mean by 'again'? It soon dawned on him, though, and he stopped in mid-air; eyes wide open: _'of course, he's going to lead me into those rocks and knock Hiccup off again.'_ Toothless realised, shocked.

With that in his mind, he turned back immediately; not thinking he was up for the task of bringing their attacker to justice if he could barely remember his closest friend while doing it. Just the thought was horrifying to him. _'And yet I was about to do just that. I'm a monster.'_ He reprimanded himself.

Hiccup, though, never forgot about the feelings of his friend. "Toothless, thank you, but you look troubled; what's on your mind?" Hiccup asked; putting any grievances about the sudden decision of Toothless to abduct him aside.

Toothless sighed. **"Nothing much, just how stupid I was for going after him."** Toothless stated.

Hiccup sighed. He could never let Toothless feel this sad on his behalf. "Toothless, it was perfectly reasonable; don't beat yourself up about it." Hiccup soothed while leaning in to hug Toothless' neck lovingly.

The affection made Toothless purr. **"Thanks Hiccup."** He said, dropping his sad tones after Hiccup's efforts.

"No problem, bud. We'll get him next time and then you'll have your answers." Hiccup responded.

Toothless nodded and they came back to land on Fury island; without the Night Fury but that wasn't a concern for Toothless anymore. _'I'll get you next time, just like he says.'_ He reiterates in his head; watching the sky where the Fury had gone with a determined look on his face before following Hiccup. **"So, what now?"** He asked, slightly unsure now.

Hiccup mulls it over for a bit, before remembering where he was. "Oh right, racing. We should get back up to the viewing tower; they're just about to start." Hiccup said.

Toothless nods and walks alongside him while giving furtive glances back to where the rogue had gone _just in case_.

Hiccup fortunately didn't notice this distraction and gave Toothless an absent minded stroke behind the ears as a side affect of his contentedness, although it upgraded to his full attention when Toothless purred from the treatment.

"You love this, don't you, handsome dragon?" Hiccup says knowingly while Toothless blushes from the compliment.

" **Yes, yes I do."** He responds, having had his attention fully diverted by the affection.

Meanwhile, in the distance, a dragon waits and watches. It then begins to slowly deliberate on what to do with the inhabitants of this strange island while turning a dragon bone in its paws.

Once they got back to the tower they both adopted a more relaxed behaviour; Hiccup leaning on the tower's handrails while Toothless came alongside him; giving him a friendly nuzzle as he passed. Hiccup visibly brightened from the contact as he watched the racers far off in the distance; preparing to start the race by putting on their saddles and exchanging friendly banter which just sounded like general bustle at this distance.

Lightning landed on the handrail on the opposite side of the tower from Hiccup, but bounded right over to him with the same behaviour as Toothless when she came to watch the races with him; barely giving the elder any time to dismount as he looked at his misbehaving _dragoness_ with a confused look before walking over and leaning on the handrail like Hiccup.

"You certainly seem to have injected _her_ with life. I don't know the last time I've seen her this excited." The leader stated, making Hiccup slightly embarrassed as the cause of her recent changes in behaviour. "Yeah, sorry. I don't know what I did." Hiccup replied, basically clueless himself except for the knowledge that he talked to her regularly.

The elder huffed, clearly not content with his answer but willing to let it slide.

Midnight and Eclipse also arrived soon afterwards along many other riders mostly unknown to Hiccup and Toothless. Still, Hiccup was courteous enough to give her a welcome as his battle-sister.

"Thanks, I didn't think you'd have noticed me." Midnight commented in response; putting her arm over his shoulder in a friendly gesture as Hiccup smiles.

"Did you think I would've missed you?" Hiccup replies casually, content with things while Toothless also smiles. However, the smile is a bit of an act considering that he's taking furtive glances to zoom in on the Night Fury rogue who moves in response to his gaze; Toothless making sure that he wouldn't be able to hurt _his_ human.

The race started below them and there was a lot of supporting cheers; enough to distract Toothless as all of them on the lookout tower watched with anticipation as they set off quickly.

…

…

Eventually the race was over; the final racers coming to rest at the start/finish line with utter exhaustion after having spent all their energy on going around. The event had seemingly gone without much difficulty, now with 4 winners chosen to advance; nothing outstanding apart from an amusing tactic of using sea water to confuse the competition/douse their flames.

Toothless felt a sympathetic pain where his own thrusters lay; thinking about how uncomfortable it would be for them to be covered as he saw some of the dripping wet Night Furies below him.

Still, he hadn't forgotten about that ominous watcher. The rogue had kept his distance away from them the entire time, fortunately not interfering with the races. Still, having a look at the rock where that strange Night Fury was…

Well, not that one. What about…

No, not that one either. Where was he? Toothless could see him this entire time, but now it just seemed the rogue had vanished into thin air.

Turning to Hiccup with concern, he nudges the human before gesturing towards the last known location of the rogue.

Considering how Hiccup had caught Toothless keeping close watch on what otherwise was a bland cluster of rocks, he could already tell what the dragon was worried about.

"Is this the rogue that we met before?" He said calmly, as though it was no concern, but his face quickly became worried at the realisation he wasn't alone.

" **Rogue?"** Lightning and Eclipse asked at the same time, before looking to each other with surprise.

Hiccup sighed, realising the truth was out. "We saw a Night Fury flying around the perimeter, no rider." Hiccup explained.

With his own knowledge, he was expecting them to act worried. However, he should've thought about the fact that they didn't know about the problem. **"That's great! I'm wondering when he or she will find their rider?"** Eclipse said. Midnight and Lightning were equally joyous until they saw the look on his face.

"What's wrong?" Midnight asked, concerned.

"Well, the dragon I'm talking about is the same one I was talking to you about earlier. He's extremely violent and tried to kill me both times we met." Hiccup said. Toothless gave an empathetic nod then growl in agreement with Hiccup's feelings.

"That one? I thought that one was further away?" Midnight said.

"No, he's the same dragon; got a close up of his face both times and they're the exact same." Hiccup said.

"You know how to identify dragons?" Midnight asked with curiosity; Hiccup was seeming more and more like a wonder child with his connections to magic and dragons.

Hiccup shook his head. "I never said I was the one who got the close up." He said, giving them an indication towards Toothless, who smiled at the attention.

" **Okay, so they were the same dragons. Why aren't you talking to my rider then?"** Lightning said, knowing that he was the best person for such issues.

"Didn't believe it was issue, said it was 'too far away' when I last mentioned it." Hiccup griped under his breath so the elder didn't hear.

Lightning lets out a sigh as she understands. **"Ok, I understand, thanks for explaining that to me."** She replies to him. **"You want to tell him that the rogue's closer now or not?"** She continued.

Hiccup deliberates for a bit, as the dragons and his battle sister wait on his response. Eventually he settles on his decision.

"I have to, whether he wants to listen or not. If this leads to an incident; someone getting hurt, someone getting killed I don't want to have that on my conscience." Hiccup replied, getting some appraisal for the maturity of his response from Lightning.

With that settled, Hiccup approaches the elder. "Sir, the same dragon that attacked us came onto the island." Hiccup told him warily.

Resil was about to dismiss the claim as similar to his previous one, until he heard the detail about the dragon being here. "On Fury island? Are you sure?" He said, getting worried about the thought.

Hiccup nodded grimly. "Peeking over the cliffs; he isn't nosing around in the cabins yet, but he's definitely interested; kept looking at us from afar and even watched the race." Hiccup informed him.

Resil huffed with annoyance at this fact. "Well, thank you Hiccup, looks like I should've listened to you earlier…" He replied, to which Hiccup gave a thankful nod for the acknowledgment. "… One of the squadrons will have to be sent out. Is yours ready? I don't believe you have any reason to be weary without any races and such." Resil asked Hiccup.

Hiccup shook his head. "I'll tell the rest of us about it and we'll get it sorted." Hiccup reassured the elder, turning before walking to Toothless.

He mounted his dragon expertly before taking off for a glide towards the mess hall where the other members of Hiccup's group would most likely be located; followed closely by Midnight and Eclipse as fellow members of their flight.

Lightning gave them a sad warble at seeing them leave, but Resil gave her a reassuring pat so she went back to just keeping him company as he continued watching the next race unfold; the final of the four.

What Hiccup didn't expect to find, as Toothless touched down with a careful flare of his wings, was the sound of ceramic breaking. Confused at the noise, Hiccup dismounted, pushed through the doors and was confronted with a worrying sight.

There were about 12 people involved, of which 7 were seemingly dazed; staggering around with some kind of bottle in their hands.

Hiccup was wondering just what was going on until someone, not in a daze, told him. "They found some bottles while on patrols. I don't know what was in them, but now they're acting really weird!" a person warned him, before leaving the mess hall.

Now slightly scared, since he didn't expect to find trouble here, Hiccup tried to formulate a plan while wincing from every sound of destruction.

Outside, Midnight had left behind Eclipse to join Hiccup, leaving Toothless and Eclipse together to wonder what was going on.

" **Did you hear those noises? Someone's breaking stuff in there. But why?"** Eclipse commented, concerned.

" **I don't know, but my rider is pretty smart; I'm pretty sure he'll be able to sort out the situation."** Toothless said, trying to be optimistic.

They hear a quick "Put that down… carefully" In a calm, Hiccup voice. Toothless was happy to hear this; **"There, you see? Don't have to worry about it; Hiccup's on the case."** Toothless reassured.

Eclipse was still sceptical, even after they heard Midnight's voice joining in with Hiccup to try to calm the situation. However, their relaxing was quickly broken off when they heard a crisp shatter and a pained shout from Hiccup from inside.

Toothless' eyes widened at the sound of his best friend in pain. **"Hiccup?"** He called, and was about to go in when Midnight came out; pulling along Hiccup's body.

Now with even more concern, Toothless crowded Hiccup. **"Hiccup, are you alright, Hiccup?"** Toothless repeated, waiting with uncertainty.

He found out that Hiccup wasn't unconscious, just in too much pain to talk at the moment from the hit to his head. As they waited, Midnight took it upon herself to sort it out. "Okay, I'm going in there and I'll stop them." She stated, but was cut off with a hurt shout as she arched her back and went to the ground; wounds easily visible through the back of her shirt.

"I… I don't think I liked the way she talks." The boy behind her states with his words extremely slurred.

Eclipse was definitely not happy to see him just blatantly stab her rider. With a roar she knocks him onto his back and instinctively charges.

Toothless had been fortunate to have clarity from not seeing his friend get attacked right in front of him. He pulls her muzzle up and lets her discharge into the air before she turns to him with frustration. **"What was that for?!"** She demands into his face; mouth still glowing from the heat.

" **You've got to stop yourself!"** Toothless stated simply, trying to get the truth into her head.

" **And why should I? He tried to kill Midnight!"** Eclipse continues, still ready to kill the human under her for his crimes.

Toothless shook his head. **"He's not himself, none of the other riders attacked us and now they do? It's a bit suspicious. Anyway, I can't help Midnight if *hmmph* I have to stop you!"** Toothless said, having to dodge a swipe before Eclipse calms down; starting to see the sense as she keeps him pinned but doesn't do anything more to him.

With that settled, Toothless gets to work on healing the two casualties of their riders. Hiccup was the first to come to since he hadn't gone unconscious; unlike Midnight who had lost consciousness due to haemorrhaging in her lungs from the stab.

Toothless was going to continue helping them equally, but Hiccup stopped him. "Focus on Midnight; she needs it." He says so Toothless, hesitantly, drops the treatment to his rider and puts his effort into Midnight to heal her faster.

Meanwhile Hiccup staggered to his feet and took a look at the group of drunks coming out. Eclipse had joined him, but apparently the drunkards had gotten their dragons drunk as well; so now there were a group of drunk humans with broken goblets and dazed dragons backing them up.

Shrugging and preparing to fight, Hiccup waited for them to attack with his wound to the forehead opening up and bleeding over his eye.

 **END OF CHAPTER.**

 **A/N**

 **I'm glad I got this chapter submitted. I'll be trying to pick up pace again after another unfortunate lull. (I keep telling myself I'm too busy, but I'm not; I have time enough for storywriting and schoolwork, but I feel ashamed to admit that youtube videos take up so much of the available time)**


End file.
